


The Darkest Minds of L'Manburg

by KatieTheOddCat



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Book 1: The Darkest Minds, Dream Team SMP Angst (Video Blogging RPF), Fluff, Found Family, I really just wanted the sbi to go on a round trip + superpowers, I thought why not, Road Trips, The Darkest Minds AU, WARNING: PEOPLE DIE, hahahaha, send help, this is my first fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29064228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatieTheOddCat/pseuds/KatieTheOddCat
Summary: (The Darkest Minds Dream SMP AU)There is a strange disease that is taking the lives of children. Soon, most of the kids are gone and those who are left are discovered to have special abilities and are taken into camps for testing.Tommy is trapped in a camp called L'Manburg with no means of escape. Until he realized just how dangerous his ability is.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Dream SMP Ensemble & TommyInnit, Ranboo & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo & Technoblade, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot, Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 83
Kudos: 302





	1. Welcome to L'Manburg

The deaths began 3 months before anyone in my 4th-grade class realized it. It took a friend dying in front of me for the adults to confess. 

I remember every detail of lunch that day clearly, not because I was sitting across from Deo at the table, but because he was the first, and because it wasn’t supposed to happen. No allergies, no cough, no head injury- nothing. When he died, it came completely out of the blue, and none of us understood what it meant until it was too late.

Everyone at the table was locked in an intense debate on whether or not our group (Business Bay) should go to war with the neighboring lunch table. 

“It’s not that crazy of an idea,” Deo exclaimed. “It’s just-”

Deo froze mid-sentence, mouth open in shock. His eyes stared intensely at something past my head. 

“Deo?” I remember saying. “Are you alright?” His eyes rolled back, flashing white in the second it took for his eyelids to droop down. His chair tumbled down with him, hitting the floor with a faint thud. 

At first, we thought he fainted. It wasn’t until Krtzy nudged Deo’s limp hand with his sneaker that any of us realized he was dead.

It got worse. A month later, after the first big waves of deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a five-step list of symptoms to help parents identify whether their kid was at risk for IAAN. By then half my class was dead.

Before we called the disease IAAN (Idiopathic Adolescent Acute Neurodegeneration), we called it Manifold Disease, after Jack Manifold, the first kid who died from it. Now it wasn’t just Jack’s disease. It was all of ours.

Things turned from bad to terrifying very fast. 

A week after three of the four kids in my neighborhood were buried, the president made a formal address to the nation. Mom and Dad watched the live stream on the computer, and I listened from outside the office door. 

“My fellow Americans,” President YouTube began. “Today we face a devastating crisis, one that threatens not only our children’s lives but the very future of our great nation. May it comfort you to know that in our time of need, we in Washington are developing programs, both to support the families affected by this horrid affliction and the children blessed enough to survive it.”

I wish I could have seen his face as he spoke because I think he knew—he must have—that this threat, the crimp in our supposedly glorious future, had nothing to do with the kids who had died. The government was never scared of the kids who might die, or the empty spaces they would leave behind. They were afraid of us—the ones who lived.

\---------------

I spent the depressing bus ride watching the raindrops race to the bottom of the window. I was bored out of my mind, desperate to talk to someone. A girl my age was sitting next to me, shaking in fear. Normally I would never waste the opportunity to talk to a girl but there was one big rule on this bus: silence. 

After they had picked me up from my house the day before, they’d kept me, along with the rest of the kids, in a big yellow school bus. According to the adults in armor, we were going to a place called L’Manburg. 

_ Psi Special Forces _ —that’s what the driver of the bus had called himself and the others when they collected us.  _ You are to come with us on the authority of the Psi Special Forces commander, Joseph Traylor. _ He held up a paper to prove it, so I guess it was true. I had been taught not to argue with adults, as much as I wanted to curse them out.

The bus took a deep dip as it pulled off the narrow road and onto a smaller dirt one. I saw the towering blackstone walls first. It had to have been ten times the size of my 4th-grade body. A gate swung upon letting us in. 

Inside, hundreds of kids were already present. All of them around my age or much older. They had scared expressions that didn’t improve the atmosphere whatsoever. 

In contrast to the dark tone, the kids had colorful X’s spray-painted on their shirts. The fiery reds, oranges, and yellows were handcuffed and watched closely by the PSFs. The kids decorated in blue and green were walking freely. 

A PSF with a strangly beard entered our bus, glaring at us. “

You will stand and exit the bus in an orderly fashion,” he yelled. The driver tried to hand him the microphone, but the soldier knocked it away with his hand. “You will be divided into groups of ten, and you will be brought in for testing. Do not try to run. Do not speak. Do not do anything other than what is asked of you. Failure to follow these instructions will be met with punishment.” 

Distrust filled the eyes of the kids as the soldier continued to give commands without much of a hello. 

“Go fuck yourself!” a boy, whom I recognized as Ponk, shouted from the back of the bus. I was about to join in on the insult train when the PSF whacked him with the butt of his rifle. 

As if nothing ever happened, the PSF began moving kids off the bus, one seat of four at a time. But I was still watching Ponk, the way he seemed to cloud the air around him with silent, toxic fury. I don’t know if he felt me staring, or what, but Ponk turned around and met my gaze. He nodded at me, like an encouragement. And when he smiled, it was around a mouthful of bloody teeth.

The last groups of four were being lifted off the bus and dropped onto the ground, including the boy with the broken face. He was the last one-off, just behind a tall blond girl with a blank stare. I could barely make them out through the sheet of rain and the foggy bus windows, but I was sure I saw Ponk lean forward and whisper something into the girl’s ear, just as she took the first step off the bus. She nodded, a quick jerk of her chin. 

The second her shoes touched the mud, she bolted to the right, ducking around the nearest PSF’s hands. The PSF chased after her, leaving Ponk alone with only one PSF. He grabbed the PSFs arm. Upon the touch, the PSF collapsed leaving Ponk unsupervised and free to run. 

“Run!” the boy screamed at me and the shocked kids as he took off. “Run while you can!”

PSFs came storming in through the chaos, chasing after the boy. I heard someone speak into their walkie-talkie say, “Orange! I need restraints for an orange!”

The remaining PSFs hurried us into a building with bright lights and dry air of what a torn paper sign had labeled INFIRMARY. The doctors and nurses lined the long hallway, watching us with frowns and shaking heads. We filed one by one up a dark cement staircase at the back of the first floor, which was filled with empty beds and limp white curtains. _ Not an Orange. Not a Red,  _ I prayed.

When they called the name, “Tommy Innit” and lead me towards a little office, panic-filled me. 

I knew what I was. My parents had told me what I was with utmost disgust. I didn’t understand what it had meant at the time, but as I stepped into that office, it all came to light.

Orange.

The doctor walked me through the color system, with a fake, kind smile. Red meant pyrokinesis, Orange meant mind control, Yellow meant electrokinetic, Blue meant telekinesis, and Green meant enhanced intelligence. As he lead me towards the scanner, he asked me questions like  _ Are you good at puzzles? Does technology ever act strange to you? Do you know how to light a fire?”  _

As he mentioned me to lie down on the scanner, I thought back to what Ponk did. In the spur of the moment, I grabbed his arm. “Listen, shithead. I’m not orange. I’m green.” I insisted with as much confidence as I could muster. 

I stared, and he stared right back, his eyes unfocused. He was mumbling something now, his mouth full of mush, like he was chewing on the words. 

“I’m—” 

“Green,” he said, shaking his head in agreement. To my shock, he grabbed the can of spraypaint on his desk and colored the front of my shirt with a bright green X. It wasn’t until I left his office I remembered I needed to keep breathing. 

_ It’ll be okay _ , I told myself as I walked back down the cold hallway, down the steps, to the boys and men in uniforms waiting for me below. It wasn’t until that night, as I lay awake in my bunk, that I realized I would only ever have one chance to run—and I hadn’t taken it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first fic, have mercy


	2. Hope Can Be Revived

If you had said to me that my new home would be a prison at the beginning of 4th grade, I would’ve stabbed you in an alleyway and laughed. 5 years have passed inside L’Manburg and I’ve grown thankful that I didn’t stab someone who turned out to be correct. 

The years had crawled at a sluggish pace with no remorse. It felt like I had been here a lifetime. 

I was never happy at L’Manburg, but the boys in my cabin made it bearable. There was Vik, who always had the craziest stories to tell. We all knew they weren’t true, but we enjoyed the fantasies and happily escaped to them. 

Then there was Lazar, who reminded me of one of those uncles at the family gatherings who would give kids a sip of their drink. 

The most notable member of cabin 19 was Sam. Sam really asked _Is anyone going to be a healthy parental figure in these kids’ lives?_ And didn’t wait for an answer. He kept everyone’s hopes up while also giving us the healthy amount of realism we needed. Sam would be there for daily mental health checkups and made sure that everyone was okay to work.

“Make sure you get a lot of sleep tonight. Our cabin is scheduled to work in the factory/garden tonight.” he kindly reminded us, even though no one could forget about the factory. 

The garden was the field that L’Manburg grew its food. Working outside in the garden was laborious, especially in winter. The only extra clothing we got during the cold season was a thin jacket that corresponded to our color classification. Everyone dreaded the garden.

The factory was a brick structure in the middle of L’Manburg where the Blues and Greens worked. It wasn’t actually a factory. A better name would be the warehouse, only because the building consisted of just one huge room, with a pathway suspended over the work floor. There were rows and rows of tables set up lengthwise across the dusty concrete floor. Depending on your schedule, kids would sew camp uniforms, PSF uniforms, make food, or make shoes. 

It wasn’t like they had us doing important work, or that we had deadlines to meet. Every task we were assigned was just glorified busywork to keep our hands moving, our bodies occupied, and our minds dead with boredom. Lazar called it “forced recess.”

Today, they had us polishing and relacing the PSFs’ boots and tightening their uniform buttons. 

I sat at the end of my cabin’s table across from Sam. I had a good view of the other 29 members of our cabin and the cabin next to us. The neighboring cabin has had an unspoken rivalry with our cabin ever since they found out they were one number away from being in the 69th cabin. If we were allowed to talk during factory time, I would’ve shouted “Sucks to suck!” at them. 

A sea of green and blue uniforms sat silently, sewing buttons. The reds, oranges, and yellows haven’t been seen in years. They were around for the first two years of imprisonment in L’Manburg, causing trouble for the PSFs. The yellows would cause the occasional power outage and would give a good electric shock to anyone who messed with them. The oranges would tap into the PSFs’ minds and resurface embarrassing memories to them. The reds were a little less creative and just set stuff on fire. 

This day would have been just like any other if it weren’t for the boy at the table to me. The boy looked younger than me and twice as tired. His hands twitched as he tried to sew the laces through the boots. His eyes were weary and unfocused as he kept attempting the thread the shoelaces to no avail. Sam and I couldn’t do anything but watch the poor boy struggle as we did our own work. 

The boy’s work also caught the attention of a PSF walking by, inspecting our labor. 

“What the hell is this?” the PSF exclaimed, putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder. It was anything but a friendly touch. The touch made the boy jump in surprise. The needle he was holding in his hand accidentally poked his finger as he tried to recompose himself. 

“Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!” the PSF sang out, knocking the boots around. Are you as deaf as you are dumb, Green?”

Despite the PSF’s loud insults, the boy wasn’t paying attention to him. He was hyper fixated on the blood that was slowly dripping from his finger. 

I notice Sam clench his fists together. This usually meant his dad-senses are going off. I wanted to shout at him to leave it alone. To value his own life for once instead of random, young shitheads who couldn’t grow up fast enough. 

The PSF then made the notion to slap the shaking boy, and Sam couldn’t take it anymore. He leaped out of his seat and enveloped the boy in a warm hug. “It’s okay.” I heard him whisper. “I need you to be quiet and breathe.”

Sam’s sudden outburst made the PSF step back in surprise. The surprise quickly wore down when the PSF pulled Sam from the back of his uniform collar away from the boy. Sam crashed onto the cement floor. 

Everyone stared in terror. We knew what was going to happen to Sam. The punishment for acting out of turn was a day’s worth of isolation, handcuffed to one of the gateposts in the Garden regardless of the temperature or the weather. I’d seen kids sitting in a mound of snow, blue in the face, and without a single blanket to cover them. Even more sunburned, covered in mud, or trying to scratch patches of bug bites with their free hands. 

The more the thought of the punishment came to mind, the more I thought about how Sam didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve anything L’Manburg had to offer. 

The PSF leaned down to reach Sam. As he did, his arm brushed my back. That was all I needed.

“Leave him alone. Just forget about it, dickhead.” 

I didn’t say it loud enough for other PSFs to hear, but I said it with enough force that made the PSF follow my orders without hesitation. He turned on his heels and continued his inspection, ignoring Sam on the floor. His eyes widened in shock, staring at me intently. I couldn’t even imagine the questions that filled his head at the moment, nor did I want to imagine it. 

The boys at my table sat in shocked silence as Sam returned to his seat. I couldn’t stand to work in silence as the man who took care of me questions who I am. 

I raised my hand to signal a female PSF nearby. “The kid next to me is hurt,” I tell her. “May I take him to the infirmary?” The PSF looked bored, barely glancing to see if the boy was injured or not. “Make it quick.”

As I marched the boy out the factory, I kept turning around to study the look on Sam’s face. _He knows. He definitely knows._

I spent the whole walk to the gray, dull building thinking about the incident. _Did any other PSF see? Did other kids see? Will they tell the PSFs if they did?_

I was so distracted by my own thoughts I didn’t notice a PSF in a lab coat follow me out of the factory. I didn’t think anything of it when the doctor caught up to me, unlocking the infirmary door. 

As the boy got his finger cleaned up by the medics, I sat in the cold fold up chairs near the entrance, not ready to go back to the factory and face Sam. 

The sounds of L’Manburg’s infirmary faded in and out in uneven waves. Some kid crying out in pain, boots clipping against the white tile floors, the creak of wheelchair wheels…I felt like I was standing above a tunnel with my ear to the ground, listening to the hum of cars passing beneath me. 

“Tommy?” A kind voice said. I turned to see the woman in the white coat who had let me in. The woman was the youngest doctor I’d ever seen in L’Manburg. She had black hair in the back and pale blond hair on the front of her face. She had round glasses and wore a kind smile that you don’t see very often from adults. 

“My name is Dr. Nihachu. I’m a volunteer with the Leda Corporation.” I nodded, glancing at the gold swan insignia on her coat pocket. 

She leaned in closer. “We’re a big medical company that does research and sends doctors in to help care for you guys at the camps. If it makes you feel more comfortable, you’re more than welcome to call me Niki and leave off the doctor business.”

 _Is this bitch being serious?_ Every and all adults who have interacted with me over the past 5 years have been nothing but the bullies of the playground. What was this woman?

“I see from your chart that you were classified as ‘abnormal intelligence’ in sorting,” Dr. Nihachu said after a while. “The scientist that sorted you-did he run you through all of the tests?”

_She knows. That’s why she trying to play nice. She knows._

Something very cold coiled in my stomach. I might not have understood a great many things about the world, I might have only had a fourth grader’s education, but I could tell when someone was trying to fish around for information. 

I couldn’t decide ether I wanted to scream or run. My legs were locked in place, stuck on the cold, metal chair. 

Dr. Nihachu glanced around the room to make sure her colleagues weren’t watching her. Once she was reassured, she sat down on the folding chair next to mine. I felt her slip something into my pocket. 

“I hope we can get along, Tommy,” she said. Just as quickly as she sat down, she stood up, leaving the waiting room. 

My instincts (which are never wrong) told me that the infirmary wasn’t a safe place to investigate what was put in my pocket. I silently crept through the infirmary door and walked towards my cabin, not wanting to go back to the factory. 

Upon entering the cabin, I collapsed onto my bed, the weight of everything that happened to me laying on me. I cautiously reached into my pocket. I pulled out two pills and a note. 

The note read: _They know you aren’t green. Unless you do exactly as I say, they will kill you tomorrow._ My hands were shaking. _I can get you out. Take the two pills under this note before bed, but don’t let the PSFs see you. If you don’t, I will cover up your secret, but I can’t protect you while you’re in here. Destroy this._

It was signed, _A friend, if you’d like._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finally able to slightly stray from the book's storyline. :D  
> So excited to introduce characters like Ranboo, Tubbo, etc soon!


	3. The Right Decision?

By the time the sun started to come down, my head was finally at ease. I hadn’t made any decisions whatsoever or discovered any answers, but I did learn to accept the reality that I could be dead by tomorrow. Brightside: Pog!

Although I didn’t want to see Sam again, I couldn’t just leave my cabin mates with my work. I trudged through the mud into the dreaded factory. I was greeted with whispers. Two PSFs stood by the entryway, staring at me and talking in hushed whispers. _Could they know?_

I kept my head down as I walked toward cabin 19’s table. I make sure to sit as far away from Sam as possible. 

I let my mind focus on the shoes I laced. I don’t think I’ve ever been so attentive to my work as I had at this moment. My biggest mistake was when the PSFs told everyone we were free for the day, I looked directly at Sam. He stared right back at me, his expression unreadable. I quickly looked away and filed into the line to leave the stuffy factory. 

As we walked towards our cabin, a sound caught my attention. I could hear Dr. Nihachu’s gentle voice as she spoke to another tall kid in Green. I recognized him—his cabin was directly across from mine. Ryan? Maybe Roman? A stone dropped in my stomach. 

Had this Green been marked too? Was Dr. Nihachu cutting him the same deal? I couldn’t have been the only one to figure out how to dodge the sorting system- who to influence, when to lie. 

Maybe he and I were the same color. 

And maybe we would both be dead by tomorrow. 

I lied in bed, not feeling the slightest bit tired. The pills burned in my fist. It was now or never, wasn’t it?

“Hey, Tommy?” a voice whispered in the dark. I turned to see Sam, sitting up on his upper bunk. “Can I talk to you quickly?”

I didn’t dare speak. I nodded my head, not looking him in the eyes. Sam tiptoed towards my bed, sitting at the end of it. 

I wished I had mentally prepared myself for this. I wasn’t ready to hear the inevitable questions. _How did you get classified as green? Why are you here? Have you hurt anyone? Will you hurt me?_

“Thank you.”

It certainly wasn’t the response I was expecting but it was definitely a welcome one. I considered leaning over for a hug but I quickly put a pin in it. 

“You’ve kept your secret for so long, only to use your ability to save me in front of everyone,” Sam said. “I don’t think I could ever repay you for what you did.”

“You’re not mad or scared?”

“As if I could be scared of Tommy Innit.” He chuckled. 

Without me having to engage it, he pulled me into a hug. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been hugged. I embraced the warmth, wrapping my arms around him. 

“What’s that?” Sam asked as he pulled away, looking at my clenched hand. The pills Dr. Nihachu gave me are still wrapped between my fingers. 

Sam already knew I’m an orange and I wasn’t ready to keep any more secrets from him. “A doctor, or probably not a real doctor, knows I’m orange. They offered me a way to escape.” I confessed. “She said I just needed to take these pills tonight.”

Sam’s eyes widened with shock at the prospect of escape. “Do you trust her?” he asked. 

“I think so.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

Once again, not the response I was expecting. “But, I can’t take anyone with me. What about you? I can’t leave everyone.” I said. 

“We’ll be okay here.” Sam reassured me. I knew he was lying, but I chose to believe it. “You’re a big man, Tommy Innit.” he said. With that, he crawled back into his on bed. 

The pills grew hot in my fist. It’s time. I popped the first pill into my mouth. It was warm from being so close to my skin for so long, which didn’t make it any easier to swallow. I popped the next one in before I lost the nerve, and winced as it clawed its way down my throat. 

And then, I waited.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I didn’t rember falling asleep; only waking. Of course, when I did—my body was shaking so hard that I rolled right out of bed and hit my face against the next bunk over.

Sam must have jumped out of his skin with the sudden bang and movement of his bed, because I heard him say, “What the hell—Tommy? Is that you?”

I couldn’t get up. I felt his hands on my face, and registered he was now screaming my name, not just whispering it. 

“Oh my God!” someone said. It sounded like Vik, but I couldn’t open my eyes. 

“—emergency button!” A white hot light was burning behind my eyelids. Someone shoved something in my mouth— rubber and hard. I could taste blood, but I wasn’t sure if it had come from my tongue or my lips or… 

Two pairs of hands lifted me from the ground, dropping me on some other surface. I still couldn’t open my eyes; my chest was on fire. I couldn’t stop shaking, and my limbs felt like they were caving in on themselves. 

And then I smelled rosemary. I felt soft, cool hands pressing against my chest, then nothing at all.

Life came back to me in the form of a hard slap across the face. 

“Tommy,” someone said. “Come on, I know you can hear me. You have to wake up.” 

I cracked my eyes open, trying not to cringe as the light flooded in. 

A door opened and creaked shut somewhere nearby. “ _Is that him?_ ” a new voice asked. “ _Are you going to sedate him_?” 

“No, not this one,” the first voice returned. I knew that voice. It was as sweet as it had been before, only this time it had a sharper edge. Dr. Nihachu’s hands came up beneath my arms and propped me up. “He’s tough. He can handle it.” 

Something smelled horrible. Acidic and rotten all at once. My eyes flew open.

I realized that I was being carried. Dr. Nihachu was holding me up with one arm, trying to keep me moving. I stumbled as I tried to keep up with her. My left arm was slung over her shoulders, gripping tightly. 

“We’re moving,” she muttered. “Return the cameras to their normal feeds.” I looked over, but she wasn’t talking to me. She was whispering to her gold swan pin. “Not a word,” she reminded me as we turned down another long hallway. The PSFs were black blurs as they stepped out of our way. 

“Sorry, sorry!” Dr. Nihachu called after us. “I’ve got to get this one home.” 

I kept my eyes on the straight lines of tile passing under my feet. My head was still spinning so badly that I didn’t realize we were heading outside until I heard the beep of the doctor’s card passing through the lock swipe and felt the first drops of cool rain hit my scalp.

It was a short walk and stumble from the back of the Infirmary to the pebbled parking lot. I actually wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating or not—my sight went in and out of focus, but it was impossible to miss the sound of crunching gravel and the voice that yelled, 

“Everything okay over there?” I felt, rather than saw, Dr. Nihachu tense. I tried to keep moving, to use her shoulder to prop myself up, but my legs just weren’t working anymore. 

When I opened my eyes again, I was sitting up, staring at the standard-issue boots of a PSF soldier. He knelt down in front of me. Dr. Nihachu was saying something to him, her voice as calm as the first time I had spoken to her.

“—so sick, I offered to drive him home. I put the mask on him to make sure she didn’t give the bug to anyone else.” 

The soldier’s voice became clearer. “I hate that we always get sick from these kids.” 

“Would you mind helping me walk him over to my Jeep?” Dr. Nihachu asked. 

I felt him lift me up all the same. I tried not to lean against him, to grit my teeth against the jarring motion, but I could barely keep my head from rolling back. 

“Front seat?” he asked. 

Dr. Nihachu was about to respond when the PSF’s radio crackled to life. _“Control has you on camera. Do you need assistance?_ ” 

He waited until Dr. Nihachu had opened the front passenger side door, and he set me down on the seat before replying. “Everything clear. Doctor…” He took my tags in hand, lifting them off my chest. “Dr. Rogers has the virus that’s been going around. Doctor…” 

“Nihachu,” came the quick reply. She slid into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut behind her. I glanced over, watching as she fumbled to get the key in the ignition. It was the first time I noticed her hands shaking. 

“Dr. Nihachu is driving her home for the night. Dr. Rogers’s car will be here overnight—please inform the morning guards when they do their tally.” 

“ _Roger that. Tell them to head straight for the gate. I’ll notify the watch patrol to wave them through._ ” The Jeep sputtered to life in a series of grinding protests. I looked out through the windshield, to the walls I spent my life in. Dr. Nihachu reached over to fasten my seat belt. 

Dr. Nihachu waved her good-byes to the PSF and rolled out of the L’Manburg gates. My eyes were too heavy to get a good look around at the outside of the walls. I let my eyelids close and drifted off to the rocking of the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Escape scenes are hard :/  
> Why can't teleporters exist in The Darkest Minds universe...


	4. You Didn't Deserve This

I woke up to cool air blowing onto my face. A Bruce Springsteen song played in my ears as I stirred awake. I tried to turn my face away from wherever the song was escaping from, but I only managed to smack my nose against the window and strain my neck. 

I sat straight up and almost hanged myself on the gray seat belt. 

We weren’t in the Jeep anymore. Instead, we seemed to be in a different vehicle with a fresh car smell. I turned to the left to see Dr. Nihachu in the driver’s seat. She was focused intently on the dark road ahead of us. I noticed she had changed out of her doctor scrubs, and as now wearing a black t-shirt and jeans. Dark circles had formed under her eyes. 

Smears of trees and undergrowth lined a road that was completely dark, save for the small car’s weak yellow headlights. I quickly averted my eyes from the windows of the car. The more I looked at the scenery zoom past, the more my stomach screamed at me. 

“Don’t forget to breathe.” Dr. Nihachu reminded me. 

The night came back like a deep breath, complete and overwhelming all at once. The glow of the green dashboard lit the scrubs I wore, and that was enough to flood my mind with the reality of what had happened.

“You haven’t been in a car for some time, huh?” She laughed, but she was right. I was more aware of the forward lurch of the car than I was of my own heartbeat. I prayed that I wouldn't vomit in front of the first woman I’ve talked to in ages. 

“Dr. Nihachu-”

“Call me Niki.” she interrupted, a bit harsher than before. She flinched at the own sharp sound of her voice. She immediately followed with, “I’m sorry, it’s been a very long night and I could use a cup of coffee.” 

According to the glowing green dashboard, it was 4:30 a.m. I had only had a few hours of sleep, but I felt more alert than I had all day. All week. All my life. 

Niki turned the dial to lower the volume of _ Thunder Roads _ and let out a dramatic sigh. “Radios only play old songs now. At first, I thought it was a sick joke, but apparently, that’s all that’s being requested.” Niki giggled a little bit. “Can’t imagine why.” Her laughter ceased when she saw my unamused face. 

“Dr.- Niki,” I said. Even my voice was stronger. “Where the fuck are we? What’s going on?” 

Before she could answer, there was a cough from the backseat. I twisted around despite the pain in my neck and chest. There in the backseat was a kid my age. He was curled up against the car door, sleeping rather unpeacefully. He definitely looked worse for wear. Then I realized it was  _ that _ other kid. Ryan-Rowan-whatever-from the Infirmary. 

“We’re in West Virginia right now. We had to make a pit stop in Harvey to switch cars and remove Ranboo back there from the medical trunk we had to smuggle him out in.”

“Wait…” 

“Oh, don’t worry,” Niki said quickly. “We made sure it had air holes.” 

Why the fuck should that be my biggest concern?!

Not sure what else to say, we both sat in silence, listening to  _ Beat It  _ echo through the car. It was only after hearing Micheal Jackson wrap it up when I said, “Why are you helping us?”

Niki smiled. “Have you ever heard of the Children’s League?” I nodded my head. 

If the whispers were true, they were an anti-government group that wants to destroy the camp system and take care of kids. The late arrivals to L’Manburg spread the word of them. I always thought they were just giving out false hope. It was our generation’s version of a fairy tale. Nothing that good could ever be true.

“We,” Niki said, letting that word sink in before continuing, “are an organization dedicated to helping all the children affected by the government’s new laws.”

“Then why did you help me and not everyone else?” a small voice said. Ranboo was now awake but was still curled up into a protective ball. “What about the others?”

“The others? You mean the other children?” Niki’s eyes were focused only on the road in front of us. “They can wait. Their situation wasn’t as pressing as yours was. When the time is right, I’m sure we’ll go back for them, but in the meantime, don’t worry. They’ll live.” 

_ They’ll live?  _ That’s fucking dismissive. 

“ _ Don’t worry _ ?! Don’t worry at the way they’ve been mistreated, don’t worry about their punishments, don’t worry about the guns constantly trained on their backs! Understood, dickhead. I won’t worry about them because  _ they’ll live.”  _ I shouted, crossing my arms. 

Ranboo looked surprised by my outburst, but not exactly bothered by it. 

Niki’s eyes grew wide in panic. “Oh-no, Ranboo, Tommy. I’m sorry, I didn’t even realize how that would sound,” she said, turning back and forth between me and the road. “I just meant…I don’t even know what I’m saying. I was there for weeks, and I still can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like. I shouldn’t act like I know what you went through.” 

Ranboo then started shaking violently. “You should have just left me. You should have taken someone else, someone who was better. they’ll be punished because of this, I know it. They’ll hurt them, and it’s my fault for going, for leaving them behind.” His voice cracked at the thought of his cabinmates. 

Niki unexpectedly pulled over. 

“Listen to me very carefully,” she said, and it didn’t seem to matter to her that at any moment a car or a PSF could come charging up the road. She waited until we were looking her in the eye. “The most important thing you ever did was learn how to survive. Do not let anyone make you feel like you shouldn’t have- like you deserved to be in that camp. You are important, and you matter. You matter to me, you matter to the League, and you matter to the future-” Her voice caught. “I will never hurt you, or yell at you, or let you go hungry. I will protect you for the rest of my life. I will never fully understand what you’ve been through, but I will always listen when you need to get something out. Do you understand?” 

Ranboo and I nodded like bobbleheads, comforted by her words. I noticed Ranboo’s heterochromic eyes dart around the car as if searching for something. Niki caught on, and reached into the center console to pull out a brown leather notebook and a ballpoint pen. Upon it being handed to him, Ranboo turned to a blank page, writing feverishly. 

While Ranboo wrote, Niki reached inside the collar of her shirt. She pulled a long silver chain up over her head, and the last thing to reveal itself was the black circular pendant, a little bigger than the size of my thumb, hanging from it. 

I held out my hand and she dropped the necklace into it. The chain was still warm from where it had been kept against her skin, but I was surprised to find that the pendant wasn’t anything more than plastic. 

“We call that a panic button,” she said. “If you squeeze it for twenty seconds, it activates, and any agents nearby will respond. I don’t imagine you’ll ever need to use it, but I’d like you to keep it. If you ever feel scared, or if we get separated, I want you to press it.” 

“It’ll track me?” Something about that idea made me vaguely uncomfortable, but I slipped the chain on anyway. 

“Not unless you activate it,” Niki promised. “We designed them that way so that the PSFs wouldn’t be able to accidentally pick up on a signal being transmitted from them. I promise you’re in control here, Tommy.” 

“Thank you,” I muttered. “For all this shit. I mean it.”

Niki reached over, and before I could think to stop her, her hand gave me what was supposed to be a comforting squeeze on my shoulder. I felt something warm tickle at the back of my mind, and recognized its warning trill. The first white-hot flash from her mind came and went so fast, I saw the scene like it was taken place right before me. A young girl with white-blond hair in a high chair, her mouth frozen in a toothless grin stood before me. Or as me?

Niki/me was walking toward some sort of office door. I heard myself scream something, but I was unsure of what I said. I sprinted towards the door, only for it shut upon reaching it. 

I jolted back, pulling my arm out from under hers.  _ What the Fuck? _ I thought, my heart racing in my ears.

“Everything alright?” Niki asked, clearly unable to see what I just saw. 

“Fine.” I lied, scotching as far away as I could from her. 

Once Ranboo finished writing, we hit the road again. Instead of listening to old songs on the radio, Niki switched to a news channel. 

_ “The president has reportedly refused an invitation from Britain’s prime minister to discuss possible relief measures for the world economic crisis and how to pump life back into the sagging global stock markets. When asked to explain his decision, the president cited the United Kingdom’s role in the UN’s economic sanctions against the United States.”  _

Niki fiddled with the tuning again. The newscaster’s voice faded in and out. At the first burst of static, I jumped. 

“ _ …forty-five women were arrested in Austin, Texas, yesterday for attempting to evade the birth registry. The women will be detained in a corrections facility until their children are born, after which the infants will be removed for the safety of their mothers and the state of Texas. The attorney general had this to say…” _

Another voice came through, this one deep and raspy.  _ “In accordance with New Order 15, President YouTube issued an arrest warrant for all persons involved with this dangerous activity.…” _

“Youtube?” I said, glancing over to Niki. “He’s still the president?” 

He had only just been elected when the first cases of IAAN appeared, and I couldn’t really remember anything about him, other than that he had green eyes and blonde hair. And even that I only knew because the camp controllers had strung up pictures of his son, Clay, all over the camp as proof to us that we, too, could be reformed. Clay was a Psi until L’Manburg had magically cured him. It always seemed strange to me that no one other than him had gotten cured. 

Niki shook her head, visibly disgusted. “He granted himself a term extension until the Psi situation is, and I quote, r _ esolved so as to make sure the United States is safe from telekinetic acts of terror and violence. _ He even suspended Congress.”

“That’s bullshit.” 

“I know right!”

“How did he even manage that?” I asked. 

“With his so-called wartime powers,” Niki said. “Maybe a year or two after you were taken, some Psi kids nearly succeeded in blowing up the Capitol.” 

“Nearly!? What the hell does that mean?” 

Niki glanced over again, studying my face. “It means that they only succeeded in blowing up the Senate portion of it. President YouTube’s control of the government was only supposed to last until new congressional elections could be held, but then the riots started when the PSF started pulling kids from schools without their parents’ permission. And then, of course, the economy tanked and the country defaulted on its debt. You’d be surprised how little voice you have when you lose everything.”

“And everyone just let him?” The thought turned my stomach. 

“No, no one just let him. It’s chaos out here right now, Tommy. YouTube keeps trying to tighten his control, and every day more and more people are rioting or breaking whatever laws we have left just to get food on the table.” 

“My dad was killed in a riot.” 

Niki turned around to face the backseat so quickly the car actually swerved into the other lane. Ranboo held his notebook out in front of him, as if he had read what he just said aloud. 

We expected him to say something else, but he kept silently reading, clearly not willing to talk about it. After a few minutes of awkward silence, Niki asked, “How did you two get classified as Green? If you don’t mind me asking…”

“I kinda just… Did it. I grabbed the asshole who was testing me’s arm and told him that I was green.” I admitted. “He stared at me for a few seconds then went,  _ Yup! Sounds about right!” _

Niki chuckled. “And how about you Ranboo?”

Ranboo fiddled with his pen, nervously. He flipped the page of his notebook and said, “My friend Charlie was a green. When he found out what would happen to the oranges…” He started shaking as he struggled to continue with his story. “He told me to switch places with him. I don’t know why I agreed.”

Niki clenched the driver's wheel tightly. “I’m so sorry Ranboo. He sounds like a great person and friend.”

Ranboo paid no attention to her reassurance and rolled over as if to fall back asleep. 

“We’ll be stopping in about an hour to switch cars again,” Niki said, back to focusing on the road.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“We’re meeting with a friend in Marlinton, West Virginia. He’ll have a change of clothes and identification papers for both of you. We’re almost there now.”

“What about after that?”

“We’re going to regroup with the League at their southern headquarters. After we get there, you two can decide if you want to stay,” she said. “I know you’ve been through a lot, so you don’t have to make any choices now. Just know that you’ll both be safe if you stay with me.”

With all my questions answered, I allowed myself to relax to the sounds of Led Zeppelin and Ranboo’s snoring. I was glad the music was playing because I would’ve probably gone on a rant about how sus fish are to fill the silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was basically "Backstory and Worldbuilding: The Chapter"  
> I should probably mention that some of the stuff in this chapter is taken directly from the books. Such as the news reports, the Children's League description, and Niki/Cate's inspirational speech.  
> Please read the original book if you can :D


	5. When The Truth Gets Forgotten

We reached Marlington at around 7 o’clock in the morning. Both me and Ranboo slept until the sun blinded us awake. 

I noticed that several highway exits were barricaded with junk, rails, or deserted cars to keep unwanted looters and visitors out of already hard-hit areas. 

The road itself, however, had been silent for hours on end. Not a single car had passed which sent shivers down my spine. I realized how much scarier it was to finally see some form of life on the road. It came sooner, in the form of a red semi-truck. I scooted down in my seat as it whipped past us. It was headed clear in the opposite direction, but I had a perfect view of the gold swan painted on its side. 

The truck definitely seemed to shake Niki because she instructed me to join Ranboo in the backseat. I did as I was told. Unbuckling my seat belt, I twisted between the front seats and threaded my legs through them. We slipped down in the space between the backseat and the front. 

“What was that truck from?” I asked Niki.

“A Psi research company. They’re probably heading to L’Manburg to drop off a shipment,” she explained, clenching the wheel. We continued cruising down Dead Man’s Highway in the middle of Butt-Fucking Nowhere

It was definitely strange to see another orange around. I was so used to being alone with the power that the thought of someone like me was difficult to wrap my head around. 

It was also easy to notice how unalike we are personality-wise. While some of my old cabin-mates would call me ‘loud, annoying, and way too outspoken,” Ranboo was anything but that. He had barely spoken any words since the long drive had begun and seemed rather unsure of himself. Perhaps he regretted joining Niki to leave the camp. Something else noteworthy is that he hadn’t made eye contact with me or Niki, always staring at his book. 

After 15 minutes of no conversation, I attempted to break the silence. “So, who’s your favorite woman?” 

Ranboo looks up from his book immediately for the first time in hours, startled by my question. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Niki suppress a giggle. “What?” Ranboo asks. 

“Your favorite woman. I love all women but the Queen of England definitely takes the number 1 spot.” I stated. It really isn’t that difficult of a question. 

Ranboo hesitates for a bit, but then responds, “My mom, I guess.” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at his answer. 

“How about you Niki? Who’s your favorite woman?” I asked, turning towards her. Niki’s still struggling to conceal her amusement. 

“Ruth Bader Ginsburg is my personal favorite,” she said. 

“I have no fucking clue who that is.”

Niki snorted at my comment, trying (and failing) to stay focused on the road. A rare grin appeared on Ranboo’s face. 

I had hoped that a conversation would spark, but Ranboo nor Niki said anything. They were really making my job hard for me. 

“Look, I’ve been locked away with the same 30 people for over 5 years, assholes. I’ve never talked to anyone new in ages. For fucks sake, can I not be the one to carry conversations?” I grumbled. “Niki, you seem social. Please talk about shit.”

“Sorry about that, Tommy,” she apologized. “You’re doing a pretty good job considering the number of human interactions you’ve had. 

“Thank you.”

“Now that you two are free, what would you like to do? Any dreams?” Niki asked.

Ranboo, flips through his notebook, perhaps looking for his answer. So far, he hasn’t answered any questions without consulting his writing. 

“I want to watch the  _ Avengers  _ movie that came out a month more before I got to L’Manburg,” I said. “I was supposed to watch it at home but it hadn’t left theatres by the time all the kids started getting sick and shit.” 

Niki gave me a wide smile. “You’ll be happy to hear that we have TVs at the league that you can use to watch any movie you want.”

I let out a quiet “Yesssssss…” and pumped my fist. 

Ranboo seemed to have found the page he was looking for and finally looked up at us. “This is going to sound silly, but I want to finish reading the  _ Percy Jackson  _ books. I only got to the 9th book.” God imagine being such a nerd that upon being freed, you decide to read. Couldn’t be me.

“We have a digital library you can use. I’m pretty sure you can find the books in the series there.” Niki said. Ranboo glowed at her comment. 

“I might have to reread the first few books to make sure I remember everything. It’s been some time.” he pointed out.

I snorted, “It’s been a long fucking time. I haven’t read anything in ages.” There was no sort of education system in L’Manburg. Everything I knew, I knew from what the older boys told me and my previous schooling. 

“I’ve had some practice with my Memory Book, so I think I’m still okay at reading and writing,” Ranboo said. 

Niki glances at him through the rearview mirror. “Memory book?” she inquiries. 

“Oh, my memory isn’t so great,” Ranboo admits. “I keep everything from my birthday to who my friends are to what I like to eat in here.”

He can’t remember his birthday sometimes? And he forgets what he likes to eat? That doesn’t sound like dementia or anything. Maybe he’s an amnesiac? 

“What were you adding to the book earlier in the car ride?” I ask, thinking back to when we had pulled over. 

Ranboo flipped his book so the pages would face me. “I wrote the gist of Niki’s speech and added her to my list of friends. Her words felt too important so now I won’t forget them.” I squinted to read the words. He had surprisingly good handwriting. 

“Am I on your friend list?” I ask with a smirk. The immediate fear that settled onto Ranboo’s face answered my question. 

“I’m sorry!” he squeaked. “I’ll add you right now!”

“That’s gonna have to wait. We’re here.”

Ranboo and I eagerly climbed back into our seats to look out the window. 

On our left, a gas station could be spotted on the side of the highway. Admittedly, I expected the rendezvous point to look a lot more secret-agenty, but the opportunity to stretch my legs allowed my excitement to overcome any disappointment I had. Already parked, was a black SUV. A man Niki’s age stood beside the car and gave us a wave as we neared him. 

As soon as we came to a stop, Niki and I burst out of the car. Ranboo stayed in his seat, gauging the situation. 

Niki gives the man a friendly hug. I notice he's wearing a knit hat that covered most of his hair despite the warm weather. 

“—got your signal from George about a half-hour ago,” the man said as I walked up. “Apparently they sent two units after you. Did you run into any trouble?” 

“None,” Niki said proudly. “But I’m not surprised. They’re stretched so thin right now. But where are your—” 

The man shook his head sharply. He started fiddling with his thumbs “I couldn’t get them out.” 

Niki’s whole body seemed to slump. “Oh…I’m so sorry.” 

“We’ll get the next time. I’m sure of it,” he reassured her. “How about you? Where are-” before he could finish his question, he noticed me stalk towards Niki. 

“Oh yeah- Quackity, this is Tommy. Tommy, this my friend and college, Quackity.”

Quackity snorted. “Boring introduction, I know.” He extends his hand towards me, expecting me to shake it. The hand was by all means normal. 5 fingers were present and it wasn’t like it was particularly dirty. My reason for not shaking his hand resides in the red stain on his shirt cuff, just inches away from his hand. 

I settled for giving a small wave. Quackity put his arm down sheepishly. I shuffled closer to Niki. 

“He’s perfect for inside jobs. Look at him. An  _ orange.” _ Niki said, scanning me up and down. Quackity gave me an appreciative whistle. People who valued oranges. Imagine that.

I heard the car door slam behind me as Ranboo stumbled out of the car. Me and Quackity’s eyes widen at the sight of him. I never realized how tall Ranboo was until he stood next to me. He easily towered over everyone, and neither of us was on the short side. 

“Here’s Ranboo,” Niki said, giving him an encouraging smile. “Meet your new comrade. Quackity will be driving with us to Georgia.” 

“Nice to meet you tall boi,” Quackity says, not offering his hand this time. Ranboo gives him a polite smile in response. 

Niki clapped her hand excitedly. “Alright. We don’t have a lot of time, but we need you to wash up and change out of the doctor's scrubs.” 

Quackity went to the back of his car and pulled out two grey backpacks from the trunk. As he did, I couldn’t help but notice a glimmer of sunlight reflecting off a gun that was tucked into the waistband of his jeans. 

“Here you are,” Quackity said, handing me and Ranboo the packs. “There’s a bathroom in the station along with some leftover junk on shelves. Take what you want but don’t take too long. I know you need some time to wash that camp off you, but time is ticking.” 

The thought of simply scrubbing L’Manburg away like dirt didn’t feel right to me. Still, I wordlessly took the pack, and turned to follow Ranboo. As I did, my elbow brushed Quackity’s arm, and that was apparently all my freak mind needed. 

Suddenly I was falling through a velvety, murky tunnel. It felt so unlike Niki’s memories seeing as hers felt like I was suspended in the air with nothing to grab onto. 

I was Quackity, and Quackity was staring down at two dark shapes—two dark sacks covered their heads, but it was obvious that one was a man and the other a woman. It was the latter that had my heart thrumming in my ears. The strength of her sobbing shook her entire body, but she never stopped struggling against the plastic ties binding her hands and feet.

Quackity’s hand—my hand—reached out and ripped the hood off the woman, sending her dark hair flying over her face. But it wasn’t a woman at all. It was a girl, no older than I was, wearing a set of dark green clothes. A uniform. A camp uniform. 

Then I had beheaded her, taking her head clean off with an ax I didn’t even realize was in my hand. A spray of blood flicked up over my hand as she fell to the ground, staining the dark jacket I wore…and the edge of the white cuff beneath it. 

The boy died the same way, only Rob didn’t bother to even take his hood off before he ended his life. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to see this. 

I tugged myself free, coming up from what felt like an inky puddle. Gone were the camp kids and before me were Quackity and Niki.

“Are you all right?” Niki asked. “You’ve gone pale.” 

“I’m okay,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and steady. “Still feeling a little woozy from the car.”

I notice that Quackity is wearing the same jacket he killed those kids in...

Before they could ask any follow-up questions, I bolt to the gas station. 

_ Holy shit! Quackity killed two kids! The kids he was supposed to rescue! They were murdered by him! _

I waited until I was safely inside the gas station to consider  _ Was he going to kill us too? _

I look out the window to see Niki and Quackity laughing with each other, like old friends.  _ Niki knows too. She has to know. _

Before I could continue theorizing, Ranboo clears his throat. 

“Is it all right if I change in the bathroom first?” he asks. I notice that the outside pockets of his backpack had been stuffed with candy that he pulled from the shelves. 

“Sure, but before we do that-” I say as I walk toward the back of the store. 

Ranboo nervously follows me. “Is something wrong?” he asks, clenching his leather notebook. 

“Yes. Something is definitely wrong.” I admit when I’m sure I’m out of Niki and Quackitys view from the shop windows. “Those guys aren’t as good as we think.”

Ranboo’s eyebrow raises a little bit in confusion. “I saw Quackity’s memories when I bumped into him. He killed the two kids he was supposed to rescue like us.” I explain. “Niki might know. I think the Children’s League might be wrong-ins.” 

Clearly shocked by my statement, Ranboo reaches for the shelf the balance himself. “Are you sure about what you saw?! Are you sure?!” he demands. It was rather scary to hear him raise his voice. 

“I’m fucking positive,” I said. 

Ranboo stares at me for a while, not directly in the eyes, but somewhere above my forehead. Then he drops down to his knees in hysterics. 

“It’s been over 5 years since someone’s helped me like this and they-” he stuttered. He started shaking uncontrollably. “No, no, no, no…”

I was unsure of what to do. If Sam were here, he’s hug Ranboo, but since we’re both oranges, it might not be a good idea to touch each other. 

Before I could even think of other solutions, Ranboo pulled at his hair. The second his finger came in contact with his forehead, all the shaking and heavy breathing ceased.

“Ranboo? Ranboo are you okay?!” I ask, kneeling to his level. Ranboo blinked a few times then took a deep breath. 

“This is going to sound silly, but I want to finish reading the  _ Percy Jackson  _ books. I only got to the 9th book,” he said nervously after a while.

_ WTF?! _

“Okayyyy…” I said, confused as hell. “Thanks for sharing again but we’re talking about the wrong-ins here.”

Ranboo gives me and a confused look then screams after taking in the environment he’s in. “What happened to the car?!” he asked. His eyes darted around, paranoid. 

“Just to recap, Niki might be working for a pro-murdering children league and we should get out of here,” I said as quickly as possible. 

Ranboo quickly opens his notebook. “That’s impossible. Niki’s my friend. She said that’d she would protect us. See!” he fliped open to one of the newer pages. There I saw Niki’s car speech completely written out in detail. 

His eyes drifted down to his bag. “There are clothes in here, right? Do you mind if I change in the bathroom first?”

Speechless, I simply nodded and let Ranboo go. 

_ What now? What was that? _

Not knowing what else to do, I decided to change near the back of the store. I wasted no time in stepping out of what had been Dr. Roger’s scrubs, leaving them in a heap on the floor. The uniform I was wearing under them was a dead giveaway to what I was, but the scrubs were too baggy to run in. I needed to get away fast. 

After changing into jeans and a black sweatshirt, I go to the front of the store to look through the window at Niki and Quackity. I noticed that since I last saw them, they had gained weapons. I’m not talking small gun here, I’m talking about military shit. _ Did they expect me and Ranboo to use that too?  _ My fear only increased when I noticed the handle of a familiar ax in the trunk of the SUV.

To my surprise, I hear a loud  _ clank _ from behind me. I notice a door with the EMPLOYEES ONLY sign swing open and shut behind the low food shelves. 

_ A way out.  _

I glanced back out the window one last time, making sure Niki and Quackity still had their backs to me, before bolting past the display of beef jerky and heading straight for that door. 

_ It’s just a raccoon _ , I thought.  _ Or rats _ . Not for the first time in my short life, rats were a preferable option to humans. 

But the crinkling came again, louder, and when I pushed the door open, I wasn’t staring at a group of rats ravaging a bag of snack food. 

It was another kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to AO3s statistics, only a small percentage of people who read my fic are leaving kudos. So if you end up liking this fic, consider giving a kudo. It's free and you can always change your mind and never click on this fic again. I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> (I'm sorry, was that annoying? It probably was. Ignore this pls.)


	6. Gloved Hands Point The Way

The boy looked a little younger than me and twice as scared. He seemed weird to me. Maybe it was because he was wearing long, yellow rubber gloves that my mom used to use to wash dishes. Or maybe it was because he was wearing a t-shirt that said ‘got bees?’

We stood still, watching each other. I was unsure whether I should say something or let him talk first. 

Then, the boy’s eyes drifted to something behind me. He raised a gloved finger and shouted, “Look out!”

I turned around, expecting to see Quackity with his ax, only to see a bunch of trees decorating the landscape. When I looked back at the boy, I realized he took off towards the woods.

_ Holy shit. How did I fall for that? _

Without even thinking, I chase after the boy. When he noticed that I was following, he picked up speed. 

He had every right to be terrified of the half-crazed boy chasing after him. I could waste time feeling bad about it later; but, for now, my mind had gotten a whiff of hope, and it wasn’t about to let it escape through the woods. He had to have come from somewhere, and if he had a way out of this town, or a place to hide until Quackity and the others gave up on me, I wanted to know about it.

“I just—just want to talk to you!” I called. “Please!”

The boy leaped over a fallen tree trunk, his sneakers squelching through the forest muck. Mine weren’t much quieter, but Ranboo’s voice drowned us both out.

“Tommy?!” he called from a distance. 

His voice encouraged me to keep running.

We broke through the trees, pouring out onto a deserted stretch of road. On

the other side of the dead-end street was a line of little ramshackle houses. I expected the boy to dive into one of the houses but instead, he made a break towards a minivan parked on the side of the road.

The car was dented beyond repair, not just on the bumpers, but on the side doors and the roof. And that was to say nothing of the shot-out and cracked lights, and the black paint that was flaking off in clumps. The nicest thing about it was the cursive, swirling logo that someone had painted along the sliding door: ELTON JOHN HOUSING. 

But it was a car. A way out. I wasn’t thinking about the logistics at that point—about whether it had gas, or if its engine would even start. 

I got there just in time for her to close the door and slam her hand down on the lock. I ran around to the other side of the car, putting the minivan between me and anyone who’d come charging out of the trees.

“Please!” I cried, Banging on the car door. “A bunch of wrong-ins are after me! Please!”

I heard Ranboo’s screaming bellow louder, coming towards me. I couldn’t stay here any longer. 

_ Two choices, Tommy, _ I thought.  _ Go back or run. _

My head and heart were in agreement on run, but the rest of my body—the parts that had been tormented by neglect, poisoned, and mistreated by people who claimed they only had the best intentions—stubbornly held its ground. I sagged against the minivan, deflated. It was like someone had crushed my chest in a vise, spinning the handle until every ounce of air and courage had been squeezed out of me. 

I swiped at my face with the back of my hand and took a step back. Hopefully, the boy knew well enough to hide when Niki and Quackity ran after me. I’d lead them as far away as I could—it was the least I could do after scaring a few years off his life. 

I hadn’t even fully turned to go when I heard the door roll open behind me. A pair of hands reached out and seized the back of my sweatshirt hoodie, twisting the fabric for a better grip. When he yanked, I fell back, hitting the closest seat. My neck snapped against the armrest and I rolled onto the rough carpet behind the front passenger seat. The door roared shut behind me. 

I blinked, trying to clear the dark spots swimming in my vision, but the other boy wasn’t about to wait for me to get settled. 

“You're going to have me put in the hole for containing shit for this,” he muttered, searching through a bag of clothes. 

My fingers slid against the minivan’s gray carpets as I crawled toward him. With the exception of a few stacked newspapers and tied-off plastic grocery bags tucked under the rear seat, the inside of the minivan was pretty well kept. 

He motioned for me to crouch down behind one of the middle seats.

“Thank you.,” I told him. 

The boy gave me a smile that was surprisingly cheerful for our situation. “You’re welcome!” With that, he pulled a white sheet over my head. I opened my mouth to protest, reaching up to yank it away from my face, but something stopped me.

Someone was coming—no, more than one person. I caught snippets of their back-and-forth, heard their feet slap against the pavement. The sound of a door opening stopped my heart dead in my chest. 

“I know it was her, Wilbur.” A deep voice said, stepping into the vehicle. “My chat literally said so.”

“Last time we listened to the voices in your head, they gave us directions to drive off a clip.” another voice responds whose name is apparently Wilbur. I didn’t have to see the owner to understand that they were annoyed. 

“They woke up and chose violence that day. But not today.” the deep voice insisted. 

I heard the boy sigh loudly. “Why do I always have to be the tiebreaker here?” he whined. 

Above the sound of the boy’s voice and the blood pounding between my ears, I heard another voice. 

“Tommy! Tommy!” 

It was Niki. I pressed both hands against my mouth and squeezed my eyes shut. 

“What the hell?” Wilbur said. “Is that what I think it is?” 

The first gunshot popped like a firecracker. It might have been the distance, or the army of trees and undergrowth muffling it, but it seemed harmless. A warning. The next one had much sharper teeth. 

“Stop!” I heard Ranboo scream. “Don’t shoot—!” 

Ranboo… I left him alone with two monsters.  _ Was this a mistake?  _

Before I could continue that train of thought, the van lurched forward. 

I tried to brace myself, but the car tossed me back and forth between the seats. At one point, my head cracked back against the plastic side paneling and drink holder, but no one was paying attention to the strange noises in the backseat when someone was firing a gun.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Tubbo, did something happen in the gas station?” the voice identified as Wilbur pressed. There was an edge of urgency to his words, but not panic. We had been driving for over ten minutes and were well away from the guns. 

The boy who rescued me (whose name is probably Tubbo) scoffed. “Whaaa..? No… Of course not.”  _ That was the worst lie I ever heard _ .

I heard the deep voice hum in suspicion. 

When the first boy spoke again, I had to strain my ears to hear him. “Did it sound like they were looking for someone to you?” 

“No, it sounded like they were shooting at us.” Tubbo quipped quickly. 

“They were also calling out for someone named Tommy.” the deep voice pointed out. 

I could tell Tubbo was sweating in his seat. “Good thing there’s no one in this van named Tommy!”

I heard someone shuffle in their seat. “Tubbo, is there a boy hiding underneath the sheet?” the deep, monotone voice said. 

“Maybe…”

I looped the straps of the backpack over my shoulders again and kicked the sheet off. Taking in a deep drag of the musty, cool air-conditioning, I used the rear seat to prop myself up. 

“Uh… surprise!” Tubbo said nervously. 

The two teenage boys in the front seat gapped at me. The driver went pale, his mouth hanging open in an almost comical way. The boy next to him with bright, pink hair glared at me through his glasses. For a split second, I was afraid that he was a Red, because judging by the look in his eyes, he wanted nothing more than to burn me to a crisp. 

He then refocused his glare toward Tubbo. “What did we say about picking up strays? Don’t.” he scowled. “That goes for cats and humans.”

“But those cats were so cute!” Tubbo grumbled, crossing his gloved arms. 

The driver, whose voice I recognized as Wilbur sighed. “Yes, they were cute, but also very loud. Loud enough for skip-tracers to hear.”

“I still think you guys are heartless monsters and I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“You’re right. I don’t.”

“Excuse me, assholes!” I interrupted, slamming my palm against the window. “Can you please unlock the door for fucks sake? I shouldn’t have come in here in the first place, I’ll admit. So just let me out before the wrong-ins catch-up.”

That shut them up at least. 

When Wilbur finally turned back toward me, his expression was entirely different than before. He looked serious, but not altogether unhappy or suspicious. Which is a lot more than I could have said for myself if our situations had been reversed.

“Are you the one they were looking for?” he asked. “Timmy?” 

“Tommy,” Pink Bitch corrected. 

“Just unlock the door!” I yanked at the handle again. “I made a mistake. This was a mistake! I was a selfish bastard, I know that, so you have to let me go before they catch up.”

“Before who catches up? Skip tracers?” Liam asked. 

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t know what the fuck skip tracers are, so no. It’s the Children’s League.”

All three sets of their eyes widened in a mix of shock and fear. “And you ran away from them?” Wilbur pressed. I nodded, still jiggling the door handle. 

Pink Bitch but his hand on Wilbur’s shoulder. “Just let him out. We already have PSFs and skip-tracers after us. I wouldn’t recommend having the Children’s League on the list.” Suddenly I felt bad about giving him the nickname ‘Pink Bitch’ because he seemed to be the only one making sense here.

“But if we leave him, then the League will take him! Why are you okay with that?” Tubbo argued. 

“I’m okay with that,” I said. “I’m sorry, please—I don’t want any more trouble for you.” 

“You want to go back to them?” Wilbur was facing me again, his mouth set in a grim line. “Listen, it’s none of my business, Green, but you have the right to know that whatever lies they fed you probably aren’t true. They aren’t our angel network. They have their own agenda, and if they plucked you out of camp, it means they have a plan for you.” 

I shook my head. “You think I don’t know that, bitch?” 

“Then why are you in such a hurry to get back?” Tubbo asked.

“I don’t want to back to them! I just want to leave this goddamn van so you guys don’t get dragged into my shit!” I shouted. 

Silence swept over them, surprised at my volume. Wilbur adjusted his beanie, staring out the front window in deep thought. 

“How about we compromise?” he offered. “We’ll take you to the nearest bus station instead of the side of the road. How does that sound?”

Not seeing any other option, I gave up. “Fine.”

Pinkie looked like he was about to protest but Wilbur cut him off. “Not a word from you, Techno.”

I snorted at his name. “Weird nickname,” I remarked. 

Techno glared at me from the passenger seat. “My real name’s Technoblade.”

“What?” I gapped. “You mean to tell me your name is actually Techno? Is that what it says on your birth certificate and everything?”

Before he could answer Tubbo let out a shriek. “We might have trouble.”

He didn’t need to point out where. Even if we hadn’t seen the tan SUV speeding straight for us, it would have been impossible to miss the bullet that blew through the back window and shattered it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sleepy-bois are together now, pog!


	7. Road to Hell

The bullet cut straight down the center of the minivan, exiting out through the windshield. For a moment, none of us did anything but stare at the hole and the spreading spiderweb of cracks radiating out from it. 

“Oh my God!” Tubbo screamed, ducking behind his seat, expecting another bullet.

Wilbur slammed his foot on the gas, which caused me to fly backward and crash into the backdoor of the minivan. The van’s body began to shake, rattling from more than just the holes and cracks in the road. 

I sat up to get a view through the back windows, searching for Quackity’s SUV, but the car behind us was a bright red pickup truck, and the man leaning out of the passenger window of the truck, rifle in hand, was not Quackity.

The driver wasn’t Niki either. Instead, I saw a woman with long brown hair, and strangely enough, a blood-red rose sticking out from behind her ear. 

As I climbed towards the empty seat I heard Techno’s monotone voice grumble, “Not to say I told you so, but I told you there were skip-tracers.”

“Not the time!” Wilbur shouted back to him, eyes focused on the road. 

He jerked the car left, just as the man fired off another shot. It must have gone wide because it never hit us. The shooter fired again, and that bullet had far better luck; it slammed into the minivan’s bumper. We felt the hit like a brick to the back; every single one of us let out a sharp gasp.

“Those aren’t League shitheads! Who the hell are they?” I shouted over the sound of the roaring engine. 

“Skip-tracers. They’re like adults who capture and turn in kids for money.” Tubbo yelled back. “This one has been on our tail for ages!”

Another bang sounded behind us, but this time, it wasn’t a gunshot. 

“What in the hell?” Wilbur risked a look back over his shoulder. “Are you kidding me!?”

My heart fell like a stone into my stomach. The red truck jolted forward, and I saw the driver-a blonde woman with a determined look in her eyes-tug the wheel to the side, trying to shake the truck free from the tan SUV that had rammed into it. I didn’t need to see who was driving it to know who that vehicle belonged to: Niki and Quackity.

The shooter in the red SUV turned his gun away from us and aimed for the other opposing vehicle. Before he got his chance, I see Quackity blast a bullet the clipped through his chest. The man’s corpse tumbled out of the red SUV, quickly fading into the distance. 

I heard a faint scream from the opposing car, most likely from Ranboo.

“Just let me go, dick!” I said, grabbing Wilbur’s shoulder. “I’ll go back with them. No one has to get hurt.” 

“Yes!” Techno said. “I second that. Pull over, let him out.”

“No,” Wilbur stated simply. 

We heard the sound of another bullet, unsure of which car it came from. Wilbur snuck a look back at the two gaining cars, gears turning in his head. 

“Can you drive?” he asked me.

“No-” 

“Do you know the difference between left and right?”

“Well duh.”

“Will you be tempted to purposely crash and kill as all?” 

“What?!” 

“Great!” he said, reaching back for my arm. “Come on up to the general’s seat.”

Before I could stop him, Wilbur swerved into the left lane then slammed his foot on the breaks. The SUVs flew past us. He quickly leaped out of the driver's seat and pushed me to take his place. 

“Relax! It’s just like riding a bike,” Wilbur assured me. “Right pedal is gas to go, the left is the brake, steer with the wheel. That’s all you need to know.” This was probably a bad time to mention I haven’t ridden a bike in over five years. 

I gripped the wheel as if it was a lifeline, ready to throw up. It was also probably not the time to mention that he’s only been one car in the past few years. 

Wilbur rushed to the back of the minivan. “Hit the gas!” he shouted. 

With not a moment to lose, I slammed my foot on the accelerator, letting out a shriek as the car burst into motion. 

“Straighten out!” Techno screamed. I tightened my grasp on the wheel. It shook and jerked in my hands as we sped along the highway. 

I only snuck Techno a quick glare to shout, “If you know what you’re doing, why the hell aren’t you driving?!” 

“Because he might kill us all on purpose,” Tubbo explained simply. Techno nodded in agreement.

Tubbo had been so quiet that I’d almost forgotten he was in the van. With the speedometer creeping past eighty, ninety, ninety-five, I wasn’t remembering much at all. 

And that’s when it went to hell. 

There was a horrible bang—a thousand times worse than the sound of a balloon exploding—and the van was spinning, the wheel dancing right out of my hands. 

“They shot a tire!” Wilbur shouted from the back. 

The wind was knocked out of my chest by my seat belt, but I fought against the natural turn of the wheel long enough to get us heading straight again. The car tilted back, leaving a trail of sparks on the road behind us. We were staring the SUVs down again, making a second head-on pass at them. 

“Keep going toward them—don’t stop!” Wilbur yelled.

I realized he had opened the back of the van. He gripped onto the side, careful to not go flying out. He stared intensely at the forest we were rushing by. I saw him reach his hand out as if trying to grab it. I didn’t understand what the fuck he was doing until I looked up into the rearview mirror and saw the dark body of a tree come hurtling out of the woods, guided in front of the SUVs, by nothing other than a flick of Wilbur’s hand. 

With his attention focused on the minivan barreling toward them, Niki didn’t have time to jerk the car out of the tree’s path. I spun my hands around the wheel blindly, until we were facing away from the wreckage. I heard the sound of shattering glass and crunching metal as Niki tried to veer, only to overcorrect. When I looked back in the side mirror, the red SUV was on its side in a smoking heap. Niki’s car had spun to the side, leaving a giant dent where the tree had hit it. Beside it was the splintered body of a tree, still rolling to a stop after the collision. 

I kept my foot on the accelerator, afraid to remove it. The sound of the crash replayed in my head with no signs of stopping.

Wilbur slid back inside of the window, plopping down with a long sigh. His hair was standing up on all ends, dusted with leaves and little twigs. It was a miracle his beanie stayed on his head. 

“Okay, Green,” he said, keeping his voice steady, “they blew the back tire out, so you’re driving on the rim. Just keep heading straight and start to slow down. Get off on the next ramp.” I clenched my jaw so hard that it ached.

Wilbur collapsed into the backseat. “Everyone alright?” he asked. Tubbo nodded eagerly, adding a gloved thumbs up. Techno grunted in annoyance. 

Despite the danger being left behind, I couldn’t help but squeeze the steering wheel, my knuckles going white. 

“Why’d you do that?” I asked. My voice sounded so meek, I almost didn’t recognize it. 

Wilbur sighed. “Yes, I know it was stupid to lean out of a moving car. Techno’s given me lectures on it before, but don’t worry. We’re all fine-”

“No, we’re not.” I interrupted. 

Everyone's eyes turned to me, making my stress level only rise. Techno gazed with a glare while Wilbur and Tubbo only looked curious. 

“You killed them!” I shouted, unable to control myself. “There were three people in that SUV and you killed them! You fucking killed them!”

Tubbo seemed taken aback while Wilbur and Techno’s expressions remained unchanged. 

“They tell you a lot of lies in the Children’s League, the biggest being that you’re free,” Wilbur said. “They talk about love and respect and family, but I don’t know any family that steals kids and then sends them out to be shot up and blown away.”

“But there was a kid in there!” I protested. “He was my age and he didn’t deserve to die! I even tried to take him with me! But i-” 

I couldn’t finish my sentence. My throat swelled at the thought of the boy whose only desire was to read a book, not to be involved in a malicious group. Not to get driven towards a tree at top speed with no escape. 

The memory of Ranboo collapsing on the floor of the gas station in panic and betrayal burned into my head. I couldn’t escape his broken, red, and green eyes. 

_ I failed him _

I didn’t even realize that I had said that aloud until Wilbur lifted me by my shoulders out of the driver's seat. He wrapped his arms around me in an awkward hug. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I know that doesn’t make anything right, but I mean it. I shouldn’t have thrown the tree.”

I didn’t have time to pull away before I was sucked into a memory. Wilbur’s memory was less murky like Quackity’s but freer. Like I was gliding on ice through his head. 

My height had noticeably decreased and felt a head full of hair that was a lot heavier then my own. I realised despite being in a memory, I was still hugging someone. The boy I was hugging looked a lot like Wilbur. But it couldn’t be Wilbur because I am him, right? 

Whoever was hugging me was crying. I/Wilbur held him close, feeling the need to protect and care for the boy. 

It was strange being in such a kind, warm memory without violence or ominous doors, but it was a welcome change. 

When the memory faded, my arms still remained at Wilbur’s side, enjoying the hug.

His stiff but heartfelt embrace reminded me of Sam’s comforting squeezes that he’d give to anyone who needed one. 

“Not to ruined this beautiful moment-” Techno interrupted in his usual low, toneless voice. “The tree didn’t actually hit them. They’re all probably alive.” 

I quickly let go of Wilbur to turned to the pink-haired teen. “Why the fuck didn’t you say so earlier?!” I shouted. Techno shrugged, adjusting his glasses. 

Wilbur was about to slink into the driver's seat until my fist collided with his jaw. He reeled back from the punch in surprise. “What the hell was that for?” Wilbur asked indignantly. 

“That was not like riding a bike, dickhead!” I jokingly shouted. Tubbo cackled with laughter and Techno attempted to hide a smirk. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I really wish I could've brought Ranboo with them.


	8. The Hardened History

Wilbur had pulled us over into Slaty Fork, West Virginia. If you thought Marlinton was a ghost town, this place was a sight for sore eyes. 

Tubbo passed out in the passenger seat while Techno and Wilbur climbed out of the car to fix the shot tire. I didn’t have much else to do but watch the two boys change the tire.

Techno waved his hand in front of the hubcap. The nuts twirled out on his command, collecting in a neat pile on the ground. 

_ Blue _ , I registered. Techno and Wilbur were Blue. What did that make Tubbo?

“Question for you. If you escaped from a camp, where did you get those clothes?” Wilbur asked, gesturing my sweatshirt. 

“Niki- The League gave it to me,” I admitted. 

Techno and Wilbur exchanged a look that I couldn’t decipher. “Can you check the collar of your sweatshirt please?” 

At Wilbur’s request, I run my fingers near the string of my hood. I ran over a small bump, no bigger than a pea, sewn into the otherwise nondescript sweatshirt.

Techno rose from his crouching position to hand me a small pocket knife. “You’ll wanna cut that out and destroy it. It’s a tracker.”

As I broke the little black square out of my shirt, I noticed Wilbur give Techno a worried glance. 

“How long have you had that?” Wilbur questioned, staring at the pocket knife. 

“A few days,” Techno said. “Found it in that abandoned market a while back. Relax, I can handle it.”

The look of disbelief spread on Wilbur’s but he didn’t comment on the situation further. Instead, he turned to me. 

“You should probably check your other stuff. The League tends to go overboard with that stuff.”

Sure enough, I find one in the cuff of my jeans, two in the hem of my shirt, and another in the strap of my backpack. I handed them to Wilbur who crushed them with his boot. 

“Why were you with the League in the first place?” Techno asked, resuming to change the tire. Wilbur glared at him. “What? If we’re taking him with us, we have the right to know what we’ve gotten into.”

“It’s okay,” I assured Wilbur then turned back to Techno. “They broke me out of my camp.”

Techno seemed unsatisfied with my answer. “I got that much. But why? All that work and all those trackers for one green? Something isn’t adding up.”

I considered telling them my real color but my mind quickly wandered to imagining them kicking me out on sight for such a dangerous ability. 

“How do you know so much about the Children’s League anyway?” I ask, avoiding Techno’s original question. 

Techno pointed his allen wrench toward Wilbur. “Ask this idiot. He thought the league was a savior of some sort.”

Wilbur snorted. “Excuse me for being desperate to save my poor brother.” Techno rolled his eyes at the comment.

“Is your brother alright?” I ask. Perhaps he was trapped in a camp. 

Techno glared at me. “No, I’m not alright. I haven’t slept in two days and I am fully prepared to fy.”

Shock left me speechless for several moments until I asked, finally, “You guys are brothers? No fucking way!”

Wilbur chuckled at my surprise. “Twins, in fact,” he clarified. 

I couldn’t help but scan the two of them up and down. Techno looked much more stuck up and poised compared to Wilbur. His fancy white buttoned shirt and long, bright pink hair contrasted his brother’s straggly look. Wilbur wore a long, brown trench coat over a simple white t-shirt. His messy brown hair was covered by his beanie. 

I supposed they could look alike if Techno took off his glasses and had hair the length of Wilbur’s. Does this mean Techno was the boy Wilbur was comforting in the past?

“After Techno got taken to a camp, a friend and I joined the Children’s League in hopes to get rid of the camps,” Wilbur explained. “After I realized the truth, I ran away from them. I purposely got myself caught by skip-tracers to get inside Techno’s camp.”

Techno let out a pig-like snort. “‘Purposely’ indeed.”

Wilbur gave a glare to his brother before he continued the story. “Tubbo had already been at the camp for almost two years before I got there. After a few months of planning, we managed to stage a coup and everyone was able to break out.”

As if the two couldn’t get more shocking. “You broke out?! Everyone broke out?! All three-thousand?!” I asked in awe. 

Now it’s the twin’s turn to be shocked. “Three thousand?!” Wilbur exclaimed in disbelief. “We only had three hundred! What camp were you in?”

“L’Manburg,” I tell them.

Tubbo takes that moment to peek his head out the van door. “Seriously?!” he asked in surprise. “Crazy L’Manburg with the Frankenstein kids?!”

Wilbur dives to cover Tubbo’s mouth before he could say anything else. 

“For your information, dickhead. They stopped testing years ago. I’m experiment free,” I say defensively. 

“Sorry, I just—I just…” Tubbo raced through the words after Wilbur removed his hand. “I thought it was all filled up, you know? That’s why they bused Techno and Wil to Ohio.” 

“How old were you when you went into camp?” Wilbur’s voice was measured, but I saw his face fall all the same. “You were young, right?” 

The answer popped out before I could stop myself. “A few months after my tenth birthday.” 

Techno blew out a low whistle, and I wondered exactly how much of L’Manburg’s reputation had leaked out in the time I had been there. Who were the ones talking about it—the former PSFs assigned there?

And, if people knew, why hadn’t anyone come to help us?

“So how old are you?” Wilbur asked. 

“I don’t know,” I said, and the thought nearly knocked me back against the van. I really wasn’t sure—Sam had claimed it was 5 to 6 years, but he could have been wrong. We didn’t keep track of time at L’Manburg in the usual way; I recognized seasons passing, but somewhere along the line I had stopped trying to mark it. I grew bigger, I knew every winter that I must be another year older, but none of it…it just hadn’t seemed to matter until now. “What year is it?”

Wilbur, Techno, and Tubbo’s expression seemed to dissolve entirely. I felt the hair on my neck begin to prickle, my fingers twist the fabric of my sweatshirt. The absolute last thing - the last thing - I wanted was to be pitied by a bunch of fucking strangers. Whatever they thought L’Manburg was like, whatever they believed I’d gone through, it was bad enough to mark me as pathetic in their eyes. I could see it in their faces, and the irony stung more than I expected it to. They’d taken in an orange monster, thinking I was a green mouse. 

“Sixteen, then,” I said, once Techno had confirmed the year. 

Tubbo's face told me he understood how I felt about the pity. He smiled gleefully at me and said, “Ha! I’m a year older than you!”

“No way! But you’re so short!”

“Am not!”

Wilbur laughed at our banter, but Techno’s face remained sullen. “At L’Manburg,” Techno began, “did they really—” 

“I think that’s enough,” Wilbur interrupted. He reached past Techno’s outstretched arm and opened the sliding door for me again. “He answered your questions, we answered his. Now that the tire is fixed, we’ve gotta hit the road.”

Tubbo climbed back in first, and, without looking at either boy, I followed, heading to the rear seat, where I could stretch out and hide from any more unwanted questions. Techno took the front passenger seat, throwing one last look back at me.

Now that the action had died down, I was finally able to get a good look at the van. With the exception of a few stacked newspapers and tied-off plastic grocery bags tucked under the rear seat, the inside of the minivan was pretty well kept. Grey carpet that matched the seats covered the floor beneath our feet. 

Elton John purred as Wilbur hit the accelerator and my entire body vibrated with it. It was the only one willing to speak for a long time.

There was no radio playing or voices in the air. There was only the sound of the engine. 

“So who’s your favorite woman?” I blurted out after what felt like ages of silence. Wilbur and Tubbo burst out in laughter while Techno chuckled. 

“The woman that does the commercials for those cheesy chips that I forget the name of, easily. No competition.” Tubbo replies confidently. 

Wilbur hesitated before answering, “The woman who worked at the turtle exhibit at the zoo when I was 9. She let me hold a baby turtle.”

We chuckled, then turned to Techno for his answer. 

He sighed dramatically. “Do I have to?” he whines. 

“What are you, 5? Yes, you have to answer.” Wilbur groans. 

Techno tugged at his hair, thinking of an answer. “Well, there was this girl from forever ago,” he said nervously. “I was at kinda a low point until she said I was ‘actually pretty funny’ and my ego has been coasting ever since.”

Over the sound of everyone's laughter, I said, “I’m disappointed in all of you. Not a single one of you considered her majesty, the queen.”

Tubbo’s eyes widened. “Oh no! I didn’t even think about her! I have sinned!” he exclaimed, throwing his gloved hands up in the air for emphasis. 

“Excuse me for being American,” Techno grumbled sarcastically. As he did, he turned the dial on the radio. Surprisingly enough, a somewhat recent Bruno Mars song came on. 

“Listen up boys!” Wilbur announced. “This will probably be the only song from this decade you’ll hear all day. Enjoy it while it lasts!”

This is going to sound sad as hell, but singing about ‘jumping in a Cadillac’ was the most fun I’ve had in six years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter ik. School break starts next week so I'll be able to write more then. :D


	9. Who Would Watch?

After hours of conversation and some old-timey karaoke, we pulled over at a place called ‘East River Camping Grounds.’ Interestingly enough, there was no river, and it certainly wasn’t your typical camping ground. If anything, it was - or once was - an old trailer and RV park. 

Even though screen doors had been ripped off or warped, even though some RVs knelt on whatever tires had been slashed, there were still signs of life all around. Walls were decorated with pictures of happy and smiling families, a grandfather clock was still counting time, pots were still on stoves, a small swing set remained undisturbed and lonely on the far end of the grounds.

“Once again, the voices were right and you were wrong,” Techno boosted, climbing out the back of Elton John. It was the second time I heard him reference some voices and I was starting to get curious. 

Wilbur followed after his brother. “Whatever. It was worth a shot.”

Me and Tubbo closed that van door and looked around the RV park. “Why are we here? What is this place?” I asked, finally. 

This time, it was Tubbo who blew out a sigh. “Well, we were hoping it was East River.  _ The _ East River, I mean.” 

“Are there two I should know about?” I questioned sarcastically. 

Wilbur scratched the back of his head. “We first heard about a place called Dream SMP from some kids in our camp. Supposedly - and I mean supposedly - it’s a place somewhere around the east river where any kids on the outside can go and live together. Dream, who runs the show, can get you in touch with your folks without the PSFs finding out about it. There’s food, a place to sleep, you get the picture. The problem is finding it. We think it’s somewhere in this area, thanks to a few fairly unhelpful Blues we ran across in Ohio. It’s the kind of thing that…” 

“If you’re in the know, you’re not supposed to talk about it,” I finished. “But who’s the Dream? That sounds like a bitch name.”

Tubbo shrugged. “No one knows. Or…well, I guess people know, they just don’t say. The rumors about him are pretty incredible, though. He escaped PSF’s four times!” 

I was too stunned to say anything to that. “Kind of puts the rest of us to shame, huh? I was feeling really bad about myself until someone told me the rumors about him.” Wilbur shuddered. “Supposedly he’s one of those—an Orange.” 

Perhaps it was the fact that there could potentially be another Orange out there or the way Wilbur said the color with such disgust, but my mouth hung open in shock. 

_ Dream _ . Someone who could help kids get home if they had a home to return to, and parents who remembered them and wanted them. A life to reclaim. 

And, potentially, one of the last Orange kids out there.

“Are you sure it’s real?” I asked. “It literally sounds like a dream.”

“Oh!” Tubbo gasped. “That’s why they called him that!” Techno face palmed himself. 

Wilbur turned to me, a serious look in his eyes. “You’ll have to be really careful, okay? Do you even want me to drop you off at a bus station? Because we’d be happy—” 

“No!” Techno interrupted, finally joining the conversation. “We most certainly would not. We’ve already lost enough time on him, and he’s the reason we have the League after us, too.”

A sharp pain sprouted on the left side of my chest, just above my heart. He was right, of course. The best option for everyone would be to drop me off at the nearest bus station and be done with it. 

But it didn’t mean I didn’t want to or need to, find this Slip Kid as badly as they did. But I couldn’t ask to stay. I couldn’t put them in any more danger. If I was going to find the Slip Kid, I was going to have to do it by myself. 

“So, I’m going to take I wild guess this isn’t it,” I said, looking around the empty campsite. 

“Probably not,” Wilbur sighed. Let’s see if we can find anything useful, then we’ll hit the road.” 

“Finally. I’m sick of wasting time on things that don’t matter.” Techno shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and stalked toward me. If I hadn’t jumped out of the way, his shoulder would have knocked into mine and sent me stumbling back. 

I turned, my eyes following his path as he kicked rubbish and rocks out of his way. Wilbur was suddenly standing next to me, his own arms crossed over his chest.

“Don’t take it personally,” he said. I must have made a sound of disbelief because he continued. “He is always insufferable towards new people. Plus, he’s desperate to try to contact our Dad. He’s scared as hell about what could’ve happened to him and about what could happen to us if we’re caught.”

I nodded, signaling I was following along. 

“Even before the IAAN disease, he wasn’t in a good mental place. He probably still isn’t,” he explained. “I know it’s not an excuse but-”

“Oh, he’s fine. It doesn’t bother me,” I interrupt. 

Wilbur looks at me in disbelief. 

“Seriously! Considering the number of people after us, he’s definitely not the biggest asshole in my life right now.” I convey. 

A smile grew on his face, happy at my acceptance. “Thank you for understanding,” he said. He then turned to run after Techno. 

My attention redirected to Tubbo, who was searching through one of the RVs. I joined him inside the wreckage of home, aiding his investigation. I noticed as Tubbo rifled through the fridge, he struggled to pick up objects thanks to his long yellow gloves. 

“Hey, Tubbo. If it’s okay that I ask, why are you wearing gloves?” I ask. 

Tubbo turned his head, bursting with excitement to talk about it. “If I don’t wear the gloves, I make things go zap!” he said, throwing his arms in the air for emphasis. 

“Zap?” I questioned. 

“Yeah!” I’m a yellow, so touching stuff like cars makes me zap them!” he exclaimed. “I wear the gloves so I don’t murder everyone in Elton John by accident!”

Despite telling me such a morbid fact, Tubbo gleefully continued to examine the RV. 

With no luck, we tried another one. I had only just reached for the door when I saw it at the edge of my vision. 

Someone had attached it to the RV’s windshield in place of a rearview mirror. It was nothing that would have seemed odd from the outside, looking in, or drawn attention unless you were really, truly staring at it. But inside, standing only a few feet away from it, I was close enough to see the red light at the base of it, close enough to see that camera inside was pointed toward everything and everyone that passed by on the road in front of it. 

And if I could see Elton John from where I was, so could it.

It’s on, I thought through the haze of panic, searching for something else to smash it with. It’s recording. 

I didn’t remember calling for him, but Tubbo appeared at my side in an instant. He must have recognized it, too, because before I could even get another word in, he was pulling off one of his yellow rubber gloves and reaching toward it. 

“Don’t—!”

Tubbo’s fingers had only brushed against it, but the camera began to let out a high-pitched whine. There was a bolt of white-blue that seemed to leap from his bare finger to the camera’s outer shell. That same crackling line whipped down over the plastic, causing it to smoke and warp under its heat. 

Without warning, all of the lights in the RV flashed on, glowing so molten hot that they shattered. The vehicle began to cough and sputter, shaking under our feet, as its engine found itself miraculously revived after a long sleep. 

Tubbo jammed his hand back into its glove and smiled proudly. “Cool, right?!” he asked enthusiastically. 

I must have had a funny look of disbelief because Tubbo giggled, pointing at me. “Your face right now…”

Still laughing, Tubbo started walking towards the van. “C’mon! We gotta go tell Wilbur and Techno so we can get the hell out of here,” he called out to me. I hesitantly followed after him. 

We found the brothers mulling over a map in the van. “We have to go. Now.” I told them, climbing into my seat. 

“What’s wrong?” Wilbur asked.

I pointed to the nearest trailer. “They have cameras installed,” my voice rasped. “In every one of them.” 

Techno sucked in a sharp breath.

“You’re sure?” Wilbur’s voice was calm - too calm. I could tell he was forcing it, even as his fingers fumbled to put the keys in the ignition. The van’s back tires spun against the mud as he threw it into reverse.

“Do you think it was her?” Techno asked Wilbur. 

“He means Hannah Rose. The evil lady in the red SUV.” Tubbo clarified to me.

Wilbur shook his head. “No. She’s sneaky for a skip tracer, but this-this is something else.” 

“They could have been there for a while,” I said, just as we found the highway again. It was empty and open in front of us, a gaping mouth ready to swallow us whole. “That could’ve been a trap, for kids looking for the Dream SMP.”

“I knew we should have waited until it was dark,” Techno said, tapping his fingers against the passenger seat window. “I knew it. If those cameras were on, they probably got the license plate number and everything.” 

“I’ll take care of the plates,” Wilbur promised. 

Techno’s lips parted, but he said nothing, only resting his head against the window.

“Should I be looking for PSFs?” I asked as we drove over another railroad track. 

“Worse.” Techno sighed. “Skip tracers. Bounty hunters.” 

“The PSFs are stretched pretty thin, by all accounts,” Wilbur explained. “Same with the National Guard and what’s left of the local police. I don’t know that they’d send a unit all the way out here on a tip. And unless they just so happen to have a resident bounty hunter in this neck of the woods, we’re going to be fine.” 

I rolled my eyes. “Those were famous last words if I had ever heard them.” I groaned. 

Tubbo gave me a comforting pat on my shoulder. His yellow gloves were the only thing standing between me and his mind. “I think Wilbur is right. We’ll be fine!”

“The reward for turning in a kid is ten thousand dollars.” Techno twisted around to look at us. “And the whole country is broke as a joke. We are not going to be fine.”

Tubbo crossed his arms and slouched in his seat. “Just trying to bring some optimistic input to this road trip.”

The group resumed their conversation about where on the East River the Dream SMP could be. I didn’t jump into their conversation, though I wanted to. There were hundreds, thousands, millions of places Dream could have set up camp, and I wanted to help them puzzle it out. I wanted to be part of it. 

But I couldn’t ask, and I needed to stop lying to myself. Because every second I stayed with them was another chance for them to discover that skip tracers and PSFs weren’t the real monsters of the world. No. One of the real ones was sitting in their backseat. 

The rest of the car ride was full of dreaded silence. No music played, no one talked, no one dared to ask where we were going next. Wilbur probably didn’t know the answer himself. 

Tubbo had fallen asleep to the humming of the engine a while ago. I envied his ability to sleep after everything that’s happened. 

Techno was in the front seat folding and unfolding something in his lap, over and over again, almost like he didn’t realize he was doing it. 

“Will you cut that out?” Wilbur burst out, agitated. “You’ll rip it.” 

Techno stopped immediately. “Can’t we just…try? Do we need Dream for this?” 

“Do you really want to risk it?” 

“Scott would have.” 

“Right, but Scott…” Wilbur’s voice trailed off. “Let’s just play it safe. He’ll help us when we get there.” 

“If we get there,” Techno huffed. 

“Scott?” I didn’t realize I had said it aloud until Wilbur’s eyes looked up at me in the rearview mirror. 

“It’s none of your business,” Techno said and left it at that.

Wilbur was only a little more forthcoming. “He was our friend - in our room at camp, I mean. We’re trying…we’re just trying to get in touch with his dad. It’s one of the reasons we need to hit up Dream.” 

I nodded toward the sheet of paper. “But before you guys broke out, he wrote a letter?” 

“The three of us each did,” Wilbur said. “In case one of us backed out at the last minute and didn’t want to come or…didn’t make it out.” 

“Which Scott did not.” Techno’s voice could have cut steel. 

“Anyway.” Wilbur cleared his throat. “We’re trying to put his letter in his dad’s hands. We tried going to the address Scott gave us, but the house had been repossessed. He left a note saying he was going to D.C. for work, but no new address or phone number. That’s why we need Dream’s help - to find where he is now.” 

I honestly had no idea what to say to that. 

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I didn’t mean to give you a shakedown about it.”

Wilbur didn’t acknowledge me and kept his eyes on the road. Techno pulled out a book titled  _ The Art of War _ and ignored me. 

I tried to succumb to sleep but my pent up energy wouldn’t allow me to. My only choice was to curl up in my seat and wait. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Lunar New Year!  
> Long chapter coming up after this. Stay tuned!


	10. The Sound of Screams

Hours ago, Wilbur pulled over into a road far enough from the highway so we won’t be spotted. The long day of driving wore him out, passing out immediately. Everyone had fallen asleep except me. 

I couldn’t close my eyes. Whenever I did, I saw Sam taking hits for other kids, Quackity beheading the innocent with his ax, and Ranboo having a panic attack over the betrayal of the people he trusted. 

The worst part was the noise I heard in the supposed silence. Back at L’Manburg, they’d use what we called White Noise to control us. Whenever a kid was causing trouble or attempting an escape, the sound would play over the camp speakers in its terrifying shrill. To the United States government and its Department of Psi Youth, it was the lovechild of a car alarm and a dental drill, turned up high enough to make your ears bleed. 

The noise was like a song stuck in my head when it was quiet. It didn’t quite make my nerves shred apart as it would at L’Manburg, but it still made the skin on my neck crawl despite being safe in Elton John. 

“Why are you still awake?” Somehow, the sound of Tubbo’s voice pressed the pause button on the internal White Noise. 

I sat up from my slouching position to look at Tubbo, who was rubbing his eyes with his bright, gloved hands. “I don’t feel like sleeping,” I lie. 

Tubbo looks at me with a surprised expression. “Really? But sleeping is awesome!” I signaled him to keep his voice down, not wanting to wake up the twins. “But sleepings awesome,” he whispered. I resisted the urge to laugh. 

“You love sleep too much. You took, like, two naps yesterday.” I whispered back. 

Tubbo scoffed at me. “It makes the car rides go faster,” he stated. “Plus, my dreams are usually better than reality.”

The dark statement left us both unsure of what to say next. “Do you know where we’re going now?” I finally ask. 

Tubbo shrugs. “Probably somewhere along the East River. We’ve already looked in everywhere the Dream SMP could be at the northern parts of the stream,” he said. “It might not even be at the literal East River. It could just be a river in the east. We have no actual clue.”

That wasn’t a good sign. This exclusive safe haven really needed an address included in their advertisements. 

“Who do you need Dream to contact?” I ask, curiously. 

Tubbo gleeful expression turned sullen. “I’m looking for an old friend. He helped me out a few years ago before I got taken to a camp,” he said, twisting his fingers together. “I really miss him.”

“You’ll find him,” I reassured. For the first time, I saw Tubbo’s eyes fill with doubt. 

“What about you?” he asks. 

The fact that I didn’t have an answer surprised me. I definitely didn’t want to see my parents again. Why would I ever want to see the people who called me a ‘freak’ and a monster? I’ll never forget the lack of regret in their faces when they shipped me off onto the bus to hell. My parents: not an option. I didn’t really have any other relatives who could take me in either. 

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I just want to be somewhere safe.” Tubbo nodded in understanding. 

I looked at his apparel and another question popped into my head. “What the hell are you wearing?” 

Tubbo giggled at my query and looked down at his ‘got bees?’ shirt. “It’s from the gift shop at my parents’ bee farm,” he explained. “They were the big men of the honey business. They had a lot of farms all around the east coast. Now, with no one to run them, the buildings are kind of abandoned. It made the perfect place to hide in after me, Wil, and Techno broke out.” 

“Are you telling me you haven’t changed since the first few weeks of breaking out?” I asked in sarcastic disgust. 

“Actually, I pretty much cleaned the shelf at the gift shop. I have this shirt in 8 different color variations in the back,” he said, proudly. 

I couldn’t help but snort when Tubbo asked if I’d like one. 

“How long has it been since you broke out of camp? And how?” I curiously asked. 

Tubbo must’ve taken this as an opportunity to show off his drama skills because he grabbed a flashlight and shined it below his face as if we were sharing spooky campfire stories. 

“There we were, trapped in an old elementary school, turned into a nightmare!” he quietly exclaimed. “The ghosts of the previous students haunted the halls, waiting for justice to be served! Scott and Wilbur, our brave leaders, gathered the ghosts and asked if they could drag the PSFs to the pits of  _ hell. _ ” His strange emphasis on the word hell made me laugh louder than I should have. 

Tubbo waited until my laughter ceased the continued his tale. “The ghosts said no because they liked our company. So, we had to open hell ourselves and throw the PSFs in!” he said, waving his hands for emphasis. 

“Sounds epic,” a deep voice said. We turned to Techno, who slowly sat up from his laid back position. 

“Epic indeed,” Tubbo agreed. “Sorry I woke you.”

Techno made a hand gesture to brush it off. “I was going to wake up anyway. The voices were too loud.”

Before I could ask what Techno meant, he asked Tubbo, “Aren’t you going to continue?”

Tubbo nodded eagerly and redirected the flashlight back to his own face. “With the PSFs rotting with the devil, everyone inside the camp was able to reach the gates surrounding the building. Thanks to how educated we were with our powers, the yellows were able to zap the gate open! We split off into groups to find our families and friends. No kids died and he all lived happily ever after.” Tubbo’s voice faltered at the last part. 

Techno gives us a rare, small smile. “I like that story.”

My thoughts drifted to the conversation Wilbur and Techno had earlier that evening. One of their leaders, Scott, and a few other kids didn’t make it. The PSFs were the ones making more ghosts to haunt the camp. 

“I like that story too,” I say. 

Techno pushed his glasses back on then looked at Wilbur. “Our driver is passed out. We’re going to have to wait to get this show back on the road.”

“We could look around for a bit,” I suggest. “There might be some salvageable stuff near-by.”

Techno shook his head. “Too dangerous,” he states, not putting it up for debate. “We’ll stay in the van until then.” With that, he pulls out his book from under the passenger seat and resumes his earlier reading. 

I groaned. “That’s not fair. You have something to do and we don’t.” 

The look and Techno’s face said, ‘not my problem.’

“Oh!” Tubbo gasped excitedly. “You can tell us another one of the stories from the other book you have. The greek one.” 

“You want to hear some myths?” he asked. Tubbo nodded eagerly. 

As much as Techno tried to look annoyed about telling a story, I could tell that the myths thrilled him based on the way his eyes lit up after finding the book. 

“The text is so small in this book. I can barely see in this lighting.” Techno muttered. 

His wish for light did not come true in the form of Tubbo’s flashlight but in the form of headlights heading towards us. 

“You have got to be kidding me.” Techno made as if to press his hand down on the horn, but not before the driver of the Volkswagen rolled down his window and pointed something black and gleaming at us. 

_ No. _ The world went into sharp focus. Sound evaporated around me.  _ NO. _

I reached up and slapped Black Betty’s radio button on, turning “ _ Stayin Alive _ ” up as loud as it would go. Tubbo and Techno both started yelling, but I knocked Techno’s hand away before he could switch it off. 

The White Noise cut straight through the music from the speakers, tearing at our ears. Not as loud or as powerful as I was used to, but still there, still agonizing. My radio trick couldn’t drown it out, not completely. 

Techno’s hands shot to his ears, covering them as if it would help. He curled himself into a protective ball. Tubbo knocked his head into the side of the van as if trying to ram the noise out of his head. Wilbur fell forward against the wheel, waking up in shock. 

The door opened beside me, and a pair of arms circled Tubbo’s waist, trying to untangle him from the seat belt. As stood up, shaking, but still able to kick the man in the balls. The man fell back, surprised that someone was still conscious. It was only then that I saw the badge hanging around his neck on a silver cord, and the bright red trident stitched there. They weren’t skip tracers. 

PSF. Camp. L’Manburg. Capture. NO. 

Some of the PSFs at L’Manburg carried the noise machines around with them, blasting them at small, rowdy groups, or just to see a few kids squirm. What did they care? They couldn’t hear it. This was L’Manburg all over again.

I launched my elbow into the chest of the PSF. He fell back again, and I pulled the door shut and locked it.

Another man, also in the PSF fit appeared at the passenger seat window, White Noise Machine in his hand. Before I could stop him, the megaphone was suddenly two inches from my face, and the White Noise sunk into my brain like an ax. My bones went to jelly. I didn’t register the fact I had fallen over until I hit the carpeted ground. 

There was a high-pitched wail, a sound that couldn’t have possibly come from an adult. I forced my eyes open. The PSF had his rifle in one hand and the collar of Tubbo’s shirt in the other, and he was tugging both in the direction of his own truck. I tried to scream for him, even as I felt the other PSF’s hands in my hair, yanking me up and out of the door. He let me hit the ground hard, the loose gravel cutting open my check. I felt blood trickle down my face.

The PSF reached out to me, ready to drag me towards his Volkswagen. Before he could, an invisible hand reached out and pushed the PSF away from me. 

Inside the van, Techno was struggling to hold himself up, his hand extended towards the fallen PSF. Techno spared a quick glance at me, then trudged his way towards the Volkswagen to get Tubbo. 

I heard a whiny sound come from the PSF. I lunged toward him, pulling the megaphone away and throwing it into the forest as far as I could. But the PSF wasn’t reaching for that. “ _ This is 7659, requesting immediate backup— _ ” he said into a walkie-talkie. 

My hand closed over his exposed forearm, and I yanked it, forcing him to look down at me. I watched his pupils shrink in his hazel eyes before blowing back out to their normal size.

I imagined the man picking up his radio—every detail, from the way he would fumble for it without his glasses to the way his jeans would wrinkle. I imagined him canceling the request for backup. I imagined him lying on the ground and staying on the ground. 

And when I released my fingers from his arm, one by one, that’s exactly what he did. He walked away, and each step brought a new jolt of shock. I had done that.  _ Me. _

A loud sound of sparks filled the air. I turned to the Volswagen to see bursts of electricity and static surrounding the vehicle. Techno was a few feet away, standing in shock. I ran to join him. 

Inside the truck, Tubbo stood, back slumped forward, his head bowed, but alive -  _ alive _ and  _ safe _ . As I stumbled closer, the smoke revealed him in pieces: bloodshot eyes, a cut on his forehead, tears streaming down his dirt-stained cheeks. 

Lying beside him was the PSF, motionless, eyes wide in shock. He didn’t blink. He was dead. 

I noticed Tubbo’s yellow gloves were beside him on the ground, and his bare hands were still up and facing forward as if he had only touched the truck a second before. 

Using his ability, Techno lifted Tubbo out of the truck and onto solid ground. Before I could stop myself, I wrapped my arms around him, letting him cry onto my shoulder.

Tubbo’s memory tumbled into my head. Through blurry vision, I realized I was standing outside a big wire gate. The sound of screaming kids and gunshots filled the air. Among the noise, I heard Tubbo/myself wail in terror. 

The sound of present Tubbo’s cries brought me down to earth. I wrapped my arms around him tighter. It was strange being the one initiating the hug. Usually, it would be the other way around with Sam. Not that I was complaining. 

I guided Tubbo back to Elton John. 

Techno awkwardly followed, showing no interest in physical contact. He stopped when he saw the PSF I manipulated lying on the ground. “He’s still alive,” he noted in his surprisingly normal, monotone voice considering the situation.

“Just leave him,” I said. Techno still stood there, staring at the PSFs chest go up and down. “Just leave the bastard there,” I repeated. 

Without warning, his hand shot up. The PSF’s body followed his motion, flying backward until his back hit a tree. I saw Techno reach for something shiny in his pocket. The moonlight gleamed against the knife. 

I turned me and Tubbo’s back away from Techno and shut my eyes tight. I heard the knife fly through the air, ringing against the wind. I winced when I heard something fall to the ground. 

“Let’s go,” I heard Techno’s voice say. I opened my eyes to see Techno holding the van door open for us. His face was completely expressionless but his hands shook violently. 

I lifted Tubbo back into Elton John with unsteady arms. He was hot, well past the point of feeling feverish. I dropped him into the closest seat, fastening his seatbelt on for him. I was about to roll the door shut when pointed toward his gloves on the ground. 

“Got ’em,” I said, handing them to him. Tubbo quickly shoved his hands in. 

Techno dragged unconscious Wilbur out of the driver’s seat and into the seat next to Tubbo. His shaking hands gripped the wheel tightly. 

“I thought you couldn’t drive,” I point out, my voice cracking with nervousness. 

Techno’s eyes narrowed. “I can. When the voices don’t demand blood,” he responded. “They’re satisfied right now.”

I didn’t dare question him. I settled into the passenger’s seat, lowering the volume on the radio that was still blasting the hits of the 70s. 

Elton John tore through the thickest heart of the smoke coming from the PSF’s truck and chased it down the open road until we were finally, finally, _ finally  _ free of the wreckage. The air coming through the vents no longer carried the echo of the White Noise into our heads or the smell of smoke into our lungs. 

When I looked at Techno next, it was impossible not to notice the single tear running down his face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's day! Enjoy the angst :D


	11. Where The Wind Blows

It took ten miles and two Billy Joel songs for Wilbur to finally wake up. With Tubbo still sad in the backseat and me and Techno having no idea where we had been headed in the first place, to say I was relieved was an understatement

“Holy crap,” Wilbur croaked. He pressed a hand against the side of his head and startled, sitting straight up. “Holy crap!”

He took one look at Tubbo’s face buried in his gloves, Techno in the driver’s seat, me with a huge gash on my face and subsequently screamed. 

“Keep your voice down!” I shouted. “We might still have shitheads around here after our asses.”

Wilbur’s eyes widened. “What happened?”

“It was Tubbo,” I began, already well aware of the narrow line I’d have to walk between the truth and what I could actually tell them—both for myself and for Tubbo’s sake. I wasn’t sure how much he actually remembered from what happened, but I wasn’t about to confirm any of his fears. In the end, all I said was, “A shithead tried to take him into his truck. He knocked him out with electric shit and we were able to get away from the other guy.”

I also made sure not to mention the fact that Techno killed someone purposely due to the glare he was giving me. 

“What was-” Techno finally spoke up “that horrible noise?” 

I stared at him, my mouth trying to push the words past my disbelief. “You’ve never heard that before?” All three boys both shook their heads. I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “Where was your camp? Candyland?” I regretted it as soon as I said it. 

Before I could apologize Techno said, “You’re used to hearing that? How the hell are you saner than me?”

I saw Tubbo crack a small smile at the joke but Wilbur looked completely serious. “What did we say about comparing trauma?” he asked. 

Techno blew a sigh, glaring at the open road. “Don’t do it,” he replied, more monotone than ever. Wilbur patted his brother’s shoulder in satisfaction. 

“You really didn’t have White Noise? Calm Control?” I asked again. 

“No. You’ve heard it at L’Manburg?” Wilbur asked. 

I fiddled with my thumbs as I responded. “They used it there to…disable us,” I explained. “When there were outbursts or problems. Keeps you from being able to think long enough to use your abilities.”

The boys nodded, meaning they were following along. “You were able to stay awake? Wilbur asked.

“I’m used to it, I guess,” I said. “And Greens aren’t as affected as Blues and the others,” I remembered to add this. A truth and a lie. 

Then a realization came to me. “Techno, if you’ve never heard it before, I’m surprised you were able to use your abilities so well and move around.” I pointed out. I hoped it didn’t come out as accusative. 

Techno shrugged. “I’m used to stuff in my head.”

Anger quickly flared up on Wilbur’s face. “Hold on a second. Why the hell are you driving?! You know you shouldn’t be driving! Pull over!” he demanded. 

“I’m fine,” Techno insisted, not meeting his brother’s eyes. 

Wilbur wasn’t ready to be that easily dismissed. “You won’t be and you know it. Pull over.”

Not having the energy to argue, Techno begrudgingly swerved to the side of the road. Wilbur took his brother’s place at the driver’s seat. As we settled in, he looked at my face again. “Shit, you’re bleeding.”

Wilbur turned off the engine and turned to face everyone. “We’ll stay here for a few minutes and regroup,” he said. “Techno, patch up Green. Tubbo, may I talk to you outside?”

Tubbo nodded and stepped out of the van. Wilbur gave me a reassuring smile before following him. 

Techno pulled what looked like a briefcase out from under his seat and popped the clasps on it open. I was only able to sneak a quick glance inside before he pulled out a white square packet and shut it again. 

“God, how did you even manage to do this?” he muttered as he ripped the packet open. I smelled the antiseptic and tried to squirm away. 

“It was when I got dragged out of the truck trying to reach Tubbo,” I told him.

Techno glowered at me from over the rims of his glasses. “If you’re going to make yourself at home, could you at least try to take better care of yourself? It’s hard enough as it is to keep the other two in one piece without you flinging yourself at danger, too.”

I shot a glare right back at him. “Shit sorry. Next time I’ll let you die. Maybe I should’ve told your brother about the dead guy,” I snapped.

To my surprise, Techno’s usual expressionless face showed a hint of regret. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’d just rather you be alive if you’re sticking around.”

I gaped at him. “Huh? But-”

“You are staying right?” he interrupted. 

I squeezed my palms together. “I don’t know. I don’t want to bring you guys trouble,”

Techno rolled his eyes. “Trouble will follow us regardless of you being in the car. I overreacted when you first came, I’ll admit.”

He brought my right hand up close to his face in order to get a better look, and I tried not to wince as he began to swipe at it with one of the disinfecting wipes about as tenderly as a wolf shredding apart its dinner. The sting that followed snapped me out of the hazy, numb stupor I was falling into. Suddenly aware of his touch, I wrenched my hand away from his and took the cold wet cloth from his hand. It didn’t hurt any less when I cleaned the small bits of asphalt out myself.

“Why did you lie?” Techno asked. If looks could kill, I would be lying on the ground like the PSFs. “You covered up for me and you said Tubbo only knocked that guy out, but…that wasn’t the case, was it? He was killed.” 

I nodded. “He didn’t mean to—” 

“Obviously not,” he said, sharply. “I guess you have some common sense after all.” That was probably the best compliment I will ever get out of him. “Why me though?” he added. 

My head shot up at his question, suddenly feeling very light. “Well, first of all, you looked like you would I would fucking kill me I did,” I explain. “Second, in a way, I don’t think you meant it either.”

Techno’s eyebrow raised. I explain further. “You were angry and not really in control of shit. Besides, what’s the world with one less PSF bitch, anyway?” 

Techno’s stern face fell and glanced away. He looked as though he didn’t believe his own defense. “Thanks,” he muttered, covering his mouth as he said it. “Wait, did you say PSFs?”

That’s right, I thought, sitting up straighter. I didn’t tell them. 

“They weren’t skip tracers. They were PSFs.” 

At that, Techno actually barked out a laugh, relieved by the subject change “And I’m guessing their uniforms were stuffed under their plaid shirts and jeans?” “

One of them was wearing a badge,” I said. “And the White Noise machine they were using-I saw those at L’Manburg.” 

“I told you the PSFs would catch up to us! The voices were right.” he kept repeating like we hadn’t heard him shout it the first ten times. “We’re just lucky it wasn’t Hannah Rose.”

The thought of the cold skip-tracer with the rose in her hair gave me chills. 

“What voices are you talking about?” I finally asked, tossing the disinfectant wipeout of the window. 

“I hear stuff,” he nervously admitted. “Voices other people can’t hear. They tell me stuff I wouldn’t already know.”

I raised my eyebrow. “So, it’s like a bunch of brains inside your brain?” I ask. “Does that mean it’s healthful?”

Techno shook his head. “Sometimes. They’re mostly annoying. It’s like a group chat with too many people.” he explained. “They can also be destructive at times.” He winced at himself at the last part. “Always demanding blood… Blood I don't want to shed.”

I snapped my fingers in realization. “See! Then it’s not your fault.” I exclaimed. If Techno wasn’t confused before, he definitely was now. “It was the bitch voices who made you kill that guy,” I explain further. “So it wasn’t your fault. So wipe the dumb guilty look on your face. I’m starting to miss the Techno who would be yelling at me like an overprotective yet annoyed mum.” 

At that moment, Tubbo and Wilbur climbed back into the van. Whatever Wilbur had said to Tubbo, it must’ve helped because he was wearing his signature, goofy smile. 

“Ready to hit the road?” Wilbur asked, settling into the backseat. 

“Yup!” I responded, hopping out of the passenger seat to place myself next to Tubbo in the back seat. Techno’s mouth was slightly hung open from our conversation. I shot him a look that meant something like ‘I can be friendly if I want to be. Deal with it.’

After everyone was settled, Wilbur banged his car keys on the dashboard like a gravel. “I hereby call this meeting to this order. Today we are discussing our newcomer, Tommy…”

“Innit,” I finished.

“Tommy Innit. Will he get enough votes to let him stay in Elton John or will he be left at the bus station?” he said ominously. 

I snorted at his antics. “Are you a judge or a game show host?” I asked. Wilbur shrugged. 

“I would like to register my ‘yea’ vote for him to stay,” Wilbur announced. 

Tubbo bounced up in his seat. “I vote yes too!”

Both of them turned to Techno, a cheeky smile pressed on their faces. “For the record, “I want to register my vote as ‘yea,’ even though it doesn’t matter because the two of you always win,” Techno said, rolling his eyes. 

“No need to be a bad sport about it,” Tubbo chuckled. “This is  _ democracy. _ ” Never would I ever expected to hear the word democracy sung, but here we are. 

Techno face filled with disgust. “Government…” he muttered with annoyance. 

“Are you sure?” I asked. 

“Of course I am,” Wilbur said. “I’m not okay with the thought of dropping you off at some back-of-beyond Greyhound station with no money, no papers, and no way of knowing for sure you got where you’re going safe and sound. Although, if you don’t want to stay, your vote is the most important. Just know that we’d love you to stay.”

Something about their reassuring looks made me want to do something terrible. I pressed my hand against my chest, trying to keep things at bay. Locked inside. To keep my hand from reaching out to brush the one he had put on the armrest of my seat. It seemed so sick, so wrong, but all I wanted to do was slip inside their minds and see what they were thinking. They looked at me like I’m human. It’s been a long time since someone has thought of me as one. 

Perhaps because you really are a monster, I thought, pressing a fist tight against my stomach. I wanted to protect them - at that moment, it was suddenly clear to me exactly what I wanted: to protect them, all of them. They had saved me. They had saved my life and hadn’t expected a single thing in return. If the showdown with the undercover PSFs had shown me anything, it was that they needed someone like me. I could help them, protect them. I just needed Dream to show me how. 

“Thanks, guys. I’m making this a unanimous decision,” I said. Tubbo lunged towards me to pull me into the hug. Thank god for his gloves. 

“Welcome new member of the lads on tour!” Wilbur exclaimed, clapping. Techno joined with weak, sarcastic applause. 

Techno reached into the front seat storage compartment and pulled out a large map of the East coast. He spread out the paper in between the four of us. “Now that that’s settled, where to now, boys?” he asked. 

Tubbo eyes lit up when he examined the map. “I know a great place for shelter!” he exclaimed, pointing to a spot on parchment. I heard Wilbur mutter an “oh no,” under his breath. “My parents have another Bee Farm near Burlington! We can stay there for the night!”

Wilbur did not look as enthusiastic as Tubbo did. “Tubbo, I love the idea, truly. But I also hate it with an overwhelming passion.”

Tubbo stuck his tongue out at him in a childish manner. 

“What’s so bad about a bee farm? It's just a bunch of bees.” I asked. 

The twins shuddered. “It was more just the bees, which stung me twice. It was the smell.” Wilbur trembled. 

I turned to Techno for further explanation. “Imagine a lot of honey, but it’s old and rotting due to being left alone for three years.”

“It’s disgusting!” Wilbur exclaimed. 

Tubbo crossed his arms. “You’re all being dramatic! You’re just mad that the bees didn’t like you as much as they liked me.” he pouted. 

“Smell is less of a concern than a roof over our heads. I’m using my ‘yea’ vote,” I said, raising my hand. Tubbo followed the notion. The twins' hands stayed down stubbornly at their sides. 

“The one time someone else agrees with me, we add another member to make it a tie. Are you kidding me,” Techno whined. 

Wilbur groaned, slouching in his seat. “Fine. Only because I don’t see any other options,” he said. “It’s going to be a half-hour ride there, so you guys can sleep if you want.”

I was so tired, my body felt like passing out right then and there, but I knew that once we stopped talking, the ghost of the white noise would fill my head. 

“Hey, is it alright if we keep music on? It can be as quiet as you want, but just to help me sleep?” I asked. Wilbur agreed, allowing Pink Floyde songs to echo off the van. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just when I said I'd have more time to update, I didn't. 😓  
> ALSO, The_End_Of_All_Things MADE SOME POG ART FOR THIS. https://thatstakensorry.tumblr.com/post/643402651498872832/a-lil-concept-art-for-the-fanfic-the-darkest  
> IM IN LOVE. TYSM!! <3


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